Chamber Music

Scottish Soprano KATY THOMSON is a graduate of Durham University and The Royal College of Music. She was awarded the Worshipful Company of Musicians Silver Medal upon graduating from the Royal College of Music Opera Studio in September 2020, for her outstanding talent and contribution to life at the College. She was a Britten Pears Young Artist (2021-2022), Garsington Opera Alvarez Young Artist (2021 & 2022) and an Oxford Song Young Artist (2022-2023).

At Garsington Opera in 2021, she stepped in to make her debut as the Marschallin in Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier (“… a graceful, wise and moving Marschallin…” – Neil Fisher) and won the Helen Clarke Award. Other recent operatic engagements include Woglinde (cover) in Das Rheingold with English National Opera, Lady Dunmow in Lennox Berkeley’s A Dinner Engagement and the title role in Sāvitri (Holst)   with Opera Cameratina, as well as featuring as a guest artist with If Opera and Scottish Opera.

Katy’s “delicious Soprano” is as in-demand on the concert platform as on the operatic stage, in a wide range of repertoire. Recent concert performances include Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, Respighi’s Il Tramonto and Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok. Katy regularly features at the Oxford International Song Festival and in Schubert & Co concerts, curated by Sholto Kynoch.

Passionate about contemporary music, Katy is known for her exceptional musicianship and creative curiosity. Recent world premiere performances include:

Lliam Paterson, Sherlock Holmes and The Sign of Four – Northern Opera Group, Leeds Opera Festival 2024.

Toby Hession, In Flagrante (Libretto: Emma Jenkins) – Scottish Opera Autumn Highlights Tour 2023 

Peter Foggitt What happens if she eats the pear (Text: Venetia Bridges) and Emily Hazrati Mother Love (Text: Venetia Bridges) – in a recital inspired by the Grimm Fairytale, The Girl with no Hands (Oxford International Song Festival, Spring 2023).

Omri Kochavi’s Nahar Amok – 2022 Aldeburgh Festival. This programme also included Judith Weir’s On the Palmy Beach and Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok. 

Oliver Tarney’s St. Mark Passion at the 2019 St. Endellion Easter Festival.

Welsh National Opera soprano soloist for Rebecca Dale’s Materna Requiem at the 2018 North Wales International Music Festival.

An experienced creative director and event manager, Katy was Festival Director of the St. Endellion Easter Festival for five years (and part of the larger team for a decade). She has also worked as a researcher, including projects on Dr. Ruth Gipps and contributing to an RCM catalogue of vocal chamber works composed by women. She is currently a Trustee for the Sir George Dyson Trust and The Berners Trust.

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PAUL BARRITT (violin) was until July 2022 Permanent Guest Leader of the Hallé Orchestra, having previously held the position of leader of the Northern Sinfonia and the English Chamber Orchestra. His numerous recordings include the complete violin sonatas of Howells, Ireland, Stanford and Schoeck as well as the salon pieces of Albert Sammons (‘The English Kreisler’), the violin works of Rheinberger, and Antony Hopkins’ Partita for solo violin. With James Lisney he has recorded the complete Beethoven violin and piano music and the Brahms Violin Sonatas and performed the complete Beethoven Violin Sonata cycle some 21 times. 

Career highlights have included a tour, as soloist and director, to mark the 50th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s Independence. He also directed Isaac Stern’s 75th birthday concert at the Barbican and played Arvo Pärt’s ‘Fratres’ at the same hall in the presence of the composer. Also memorable were performances of Bach Double Concerto with Igor Oistrakh at the Barbican and with Maxim Vengerov at the Proms, as well as Vaughan Williams’ Lark Ascending with the Hallé. Recent chamber music engagements have taken him to Munich and Manchester as well as concerts in the Ardèche, France. 

This last season he been guest leading the Orchestra of St Johns, as well as appearing as soloist/director with orchestras in Wendover and London and at the St Endellion Festival, Cornwall. In recent years Paul has been much in demand giving talks with live music on the subject of Birds and Music, most notably for the Linnean Society of London. 

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Praised for her ‘accompaniment, which stood out as dramatic, plaintive and attention grabbing’ (The Argus), ANA MANASTIREANU is one of the most sought-after collaborative pianists of her generation, specialising in chamber music and song accompaniment. 

She has won multiple awards, including Accompanist Prizes in the AESS PatriciaRoutledge National English Song Competition, Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards and Ashburnham English Song Awards, as well as the Press Prize and Junior Jury Prize at the 56th International Vocal Competition Lied Duo 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands.

Ana was a Scholar of the International Summer Academy for Chamber Music Niedersachsen in Germany and a Fellow of the Toronto Chamber Music Institute in Canada. She is a former Britten-Pears Young Artist, Leeds Lieder Young Artist and a Musicians’ Company Young Artist.

Recent performance highlights include collaborations with tenor Mark Padmore CBE and baritone Roderick Williams OBE, as well as appearances on BBC Radio 3 - In Tune and in the Aldeburgh Festival, Oxford Lieder Festival, Leeds Lieder Festival, St.Endellion Festival, North Norfolk Music Festival, Brighton Festival and Lewes Festival of Song.

Ana has recently graduated with an Artist Diploma, a Master of Performance in Collaborative Piano and a Bachelor of Music (Hons) from the Royal College of Music in London, where she studied with Kathron Sturrock, Simon Lepper, Roger Vignoles, Niel Immelman and Leon McCawley.

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