John Mark Ainsley is a highly versatile concert singer whose international engagements include appearances with the London Symphony under Sir Colin Davis, Rostropovich and Previn, the Concert D’Astrée under Haim, the London Philharmonic under Norrington, Les Musiciens du Louvre under Minkowski, the Cleveland Orchestra under Welser-Möst, the Berlin Philharmonic under Haitink and Rattle, the Berlin Staatskapelle under Jordan, the New York Philharmonic under Masur, the Boston Symphony under Ozawa, the San Francisco Symphony under Tate and Norrington, the Vienna Philharmonic under Norrington, Pinnock and Welser-Möst, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields under Marriner and Langrée, and both the Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Orchestre de Paris under Giulini.

At the 2005 Saito Kinen Festival he appeared in Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder under Ozawa. His discography is extensive, including Handel’s Saul with Gardiner, Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream with Davis, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with Haitink and J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor and the Evangelist in the St Matthew Passion with Ozawa, L’enfance du Christ, Alexander’s Feast, Acis and Galatea, the Berlioz Requiem and the title role in Monteverdi’s Orfeo. He has made a series of recital records of Schubert, Mozart, Purcell, Grainger, Warlock and Quilter, with a recording of Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge nominated for a Gramophone Award. Other recordings include the Britten cycles Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, Les Illuminations and Nocturne, Charlie in Brigadoon and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni. On the operatic stage he has sung Don Ottavio at the Glyndebourne Festival under Sir Simon Rattle, and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival under Claudio Abbado. He has appeared with Opera Australia as Tito and Idomeneo, with the Netherlands Opera as the title role in Handel’s Samson, with the San Francisco Opera as Don Ottavio and Jupiter in Semele and at the Munich Festival as Jonathan in Saul and as Orfeo, for which he received the Munich Festival Prize. In 2002 he made his début at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as Don Ottavio under Mackerras. At the 2003 Salzburg Festival he created the rôle of Der Daemon in the world première of Hans Werner Henze’s L’Upupa, which he reprised at the Teatro Real, Madrid. He returned to Salzburg in 2006 where he sang Soliman in Zaide and Belfiore in La finta giardinera. He sang The Madwoman in Britten’s Curlew River in Frankfurt and his first Pelléas for the Deutsche Oper, Berlin.

Iestyn Davies is a British countertenor widely recognised as one of the world’s finest singers celebrated for the beauty and technical dexterity of his voice and intelligent musicianship. Critical recognition of Iestyn’s work can be seen in two Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, a RPS Award for Young Singer of the Year, the Critics’ Circle Award and recently an Olivier Award Nomination. He was awarded the MBE in the Queen's New Year's Honours List 2017 for services to music.

Although blessed with a Welsh name, Iestyn hails from York, born into a musical household, his father being the founding cellist of the Fitzwilliam String Quartet.

He began his singing life as a chorister at St John’s College, Cambridge under the direction of Dr.George Guest and later Christopher Robinson.

Later, after graduating in Archaeology and Anthropology from St John’s College, Cambridge Iestyn studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London of which he is now a Fellow.

In 2015 he delighted London theatre audiences singing the role of Farinelli in the play, Farinelli and the King with Mark Rylance at the Globe Theatre. The hugely successful project transferred to the West End this season and was nominated for a number of Olivier Awards.

His operatic engagements have included Ottone (L’incoronazione di Poppea/Monteverdi) for Zürich Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Arsace (Partenope/Handel) for New York City Opera; Oberon (A Midsummer Night’s Dream/Britten) for Houston Grand Opera, English National Opera and The Metropolitan Opera, New York; Apollo (Death in Venice/Britten) for English National Opera and in his house debut at La Scala, Milan; Hamor (Jephtha/Handel) for Welsh National Opera and Opera National de Bordeaux; Steffani’s Niobe at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; his debut at The Metropolitan Opera Unulfo (Rodelinda/Handel) where he has also appeared as Trinculo The Tempest; the Lyric Opera of Chicago in Rinaldo; Bertarido Rodelinda for English National Opera; his debuts at the Opéra Comique and the Munich and Vienna Festivals in George Benjamin's Written on Skin and the title role Rinaldo for Glyndebourne Festival Opera. He returned to Glyndebourne in 2015 for David in Handel’s Saul.

His concert engagements have included performances at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan with Dudamel, the Concertgebouw and Tonhalle with Koopman and at the Barbican, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Lincoln Centre and at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall with orchestras that include the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Britten Sinfonia, Concerto Köln, Concerto Copenhagen, Ensemble Matheus, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He recently made his debut, in recital, at Carnegie Hall, New York. He enjoys a successful relationship with the Wigmore Hall, where, in the 2012/13 season, he curated his own residency.

Recent highlights have included two Bach recitals at the Edinburgh International Festival, Britten's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at the Aldeburgh Festival and Schubert's 'Die Schöne Müllerin' with Julius Drake at Middle Temple Hall, London. Future plans include Thomas Adès's "The Exterminating Angel' at the Metropolitan Opera New York and Farinelli & the King with Mark Rylance on Broadway, New York.

His recordings include two versions of Handel’s Messiah (New College Oxford, AAM/Naxos) and (Polyphony, Britten Sinfonia/Hyperion), Handel’s Chandos Anthems on Hyperion, Handel’s Flavio for Chandos with The Early Opera Company and Christian Curnyn, Bach’s Easter Oratorio with Retrospect Ensemble, his debut solo recording Live at the Wigmore Hall with his own Ensemble Guadagni, a disc of Porpora Cantatas with Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo, an award winning disc of works for Guadagni for Hyperion and a disc of Handel arias with The King’s Consort for Vivat. 2014/5 saw the release of The Art of Melancholy, a recital of Dowland songs for Hyperion, Flow my tears, songs for lute, viol and voice on the Wigmore Live label and Arise my muse for which he received the Gramophone Recital Award. He has added recordings of Bach Cantatas with Arcangelo, Faure Songs with Malcolm Martineau andlooks forward to the release of Bach's Magnificat and B Minor Mass in the coming months both for Hyperion.

He is the recipient of the 2010 Royal Philharmonic Young Artist of the Year Award, the 2012 & 2014 Gramophone Recital Award, the 2013 Critics’ Circle Awards for Exceptional Young Talent (Singer).

Malcolm Martineau was born in Edinburgh, read Music at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and studied at the Royal College of Music.

Recognised as one of the leading accompanists of his generation, he has worked with many of the world’s greatest singers including Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Janet Baker, Olaf Bär, Barbara Bonney, Ian Bostridge, Angela Gheorghiu, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Della Jones, Simon Keenlyside, Angelika Kirchschlager, Magdalena Kozena, Solveig Kringelborn, Jonathan Lemalu, Dame Felicity Lott, Christopher Maltman, Karita Mattila, Lisa Milne, Ann Murray, Anna Netrebko, Anne Sofie von Otter, Joan Rodgers, Amanda Roocroft, Michael Schade, Frederica von Stade, Sarah Walker and Bryn Terfel.

He has presented his own series at the Wigmore Hall (a Britten and a Poulenc series and Decade by Decade – 100 years of German Song broadcast by the BBC) and at the Edinburgh Festival (the complete lieder of Hugo Wolf). He has appeared throughout Europe (including London’s Wigmore Hall, Barbican, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Royal Opera House; La Scala, Milan; the Chatelet, Paris; the Liceu, Barcelona; Berlin’s Philharmonie and Konzerthaus; Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and the Vienna Konzerthaus and Musikverein), North America (including in New York both Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall), Australia (including the Sydney Opera House) and at the Aix en Provence, Vienna, Edinburgh, Schubertiade, Munich and Salzburg Festivals.

Recording projects have included Schubert, Schumann and English song recitals with Bryn Terfel (for Deutsche Grammophon); Schubert and Strauss recitals with Simon Keenlyside (for EMI); recital recordings with Angela Gheorghiu and Barbara Bonney (for Decca), Magdalena Kozena (for DG), Della Jones (for Chandos), Susan Bullock (for Crear Classics), Solveig Kringelborn (for NMA); Amanda Roocroft (for Onyx); the complete Fauré songs with Sarah Walker and Tom Krause; the complete Britten Folk Songs for Hyperion; the complete Beethoven Folk Songs for Deutsche Grammophon; the complete Poulenc songs for Signum; and Britten Song Cycles as well as Schubert’s Winterreise with Florian Boesch for Onyx.

This season’s engagements include appearances with Simon Keenlyside, Magdalena Kozena, Dorothea Röschmann, Susan Graham, Christopher Maltman, Thomas Oliemanns, Kate Royal, Christiane Karg, Iestyn Davies, Florian Boesch and Anne Schwanewilms.

He was a given an honorary doctorate at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 2004, and appointed International Fellow of Accompaniment in 2009. Malcolm was the Artistic Director of the 2011 Leeds Lieder Festival.

Born in County Durham, the mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly studied piano and singing at the Royal College of Music and continued her studies with Gerald Martin Moore. She made her United States début in the 1999/2000 season in the title role of Ariodante. This was followed in the 2000/2001 season by her début at the San Francisco Opera singing both Ino and Juno in Semele. She has since returned to the NYCO as Romeo in I Capuleti ed i Montecchi and in the title role of Xerxes. In 2005 she made an acclaimed Metropolitan Opera début as Annio in La clemenza di Tito and her Carnegie Hall recital début in the Weill Hall. Opera engagements in Europe have included Nerone in L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Maggio Musicale in Florence and her débuts at the Paris Opéra as Sesto in Giulio Cesare; at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées as Juno and at the Munich Festival in the title role of The Rape of Lucretia. At English National Opera her roles include Handel’s Xerxes and Ariodante, Ruggiero in Alcina, Susie in The Silver Tassie, Ottavia in L’incoronazione di Poppea, Dido in Dido and Aeneas and in The Trojans, Sesto in La clemenza di Tito, for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, and the title role in The Rape of Lucretia, which was televised by the BBC. She has appeared at Glyndebourne and at La Scala, Milan. Her concert engagements include appearances at the Salzburg Festival, Tanglewood Festival, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, with distinguished conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Roger Norrington, Edo de Waart, Philippe Herreweghe and Daniel Harding. She is a regular guest artist at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall and was invited to take part in the opening festival of Carnegie’s new Zankel Hall in New York. Sarah Connolly is committed to promoting new music, and her world première performances include Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Twice through the heartwith the Schoenberg Ensemble conducted by Oliver Knussen; Jonathan Harvey’s Songs of Li Po at the Aldeburgh Festival and Sir John Tavener’s Tribute to Cavafy at the Symphony Hall, Birmingham. She has collaborated in a number of important recordings in repertoire ranging from Bach to Schoenberg and Vaughan Williams.

Kitty Whately trained at Chetham’s School of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Royal College of Music International Opera School. She won both the Kathleen Ferrier Award and the 59th Royal Overseas League Award in 2011, and was part of the prestigious Verbier Festival Academy where she appeared as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro and in Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy. Kitty was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2013-15, during which time she recorded her debut solo album This Other Eden (Champs Hill Records), made recordings with BBC orchestras, commissioned a new song cycle by Jonathan Dove (included on this album) and made several appearances at the BBC Proms.

Opera highlights include the world premiere of Vasco Mendonca’s The House Taken Over directed by Katie Mitchell, with performances in Antwerp, Strasbourg, Luxembourg, Bruges and Lisbon; Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Stewardess in Jonathan Dove’s Flight (Opera Holland Park); Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bergen National Opera); Kate in Owen Wingrave (Opera National de Lorraine); Dorabella in Così fan tutte (English Touring Opera) and Ippolita / Pallade in Cavalli’s Elena in Montpellier and Versailles for the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

Kitty is in high demand as a concert artist and has given performances with most of the UK’s major orchestras, including Duruflé’s Requiem and Mozart’s Requiem (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), Bach’s B Minor Mass (Royal Northern Sinfonia and Scottish Chamber Orchestra), Beethoven’s Mass in C Major (Philharmonia Orchestra), Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Ulster Orchestra), Haydn’s Nelson Mass (Britten Sinfonia on tour in Spain and the Netherlands) and Bach’s Magnificat (Britten Sinfonia and Choir of King’s College Cambridge). Further performances include Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius at St John’s Smith Square and Handel’s Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall. Kitty has given recitals at Wigmore Hall, Leighton House, and the Edinburgh, Oxford Lieder, Leeds Lieder and Buxton festivals, working regularly