Scottish mezzo-soprano Judy Louie Brown read Music at the University of Edinburgh and received her Masters from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and is now a much sought-after recitalist, opera and consort singer. Described by Opera Magazine as singing with “steadiness, purity, dignity and command”, she works with Dunedin Consort, Scottish Opera, the Monteverdi Choir, English Concert and the Academy of Ancient Music. She has performed at the Proms, Aix-en-Provence Festival, London Handel Festival, Handel Festival in Halle, Germany, Edinburgh International Festival, the Barbican’s Contemporary Music Season and at the Tête-à-Tête opera festival, and on stages as diverse as Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, the Wigmore Hall, the Vienna Musikverein and St Magnus’ Cathedral, Orkney.
Praised for the “dynamism and delicacy” of her singing, solo performance highlights include the Orcadian premiere of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ song cycle for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble The Birds in St Magnus Cathedral, Orkney, a recital of the lieder of Schubert and Hans Gál in the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Handel’s Messiah for The Edinburgh Royal Choral Union in the Usher Hall, and the Angel in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius in Southwark Cathedral.
Recent performances include the St Matthew Passion with Dunedin Consort, Second Witch in Errolyn Wallen’s Dido’s Ghost, at the Barbican, Edinburgh International Festival and Buxton Opera Festival and Messiah with Nevil Holt Opera. Forthcoming engagements include Mozart’s Coronation Mass in the Barnes Music Festival, Rutter’s Feel the Spirit in Southwell Minster, Dunster and Brighton Festivals with the Marian Consort, and a solo lieder recital in Vienna.
Born in Nottinghamshire, Ruth Massey was educated at Worksop College and Cambridge University, where she held a Choral Scholarship at Clare College. She has performed with many of the UK’s foremost consorts, specialising in Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music. She has toured the world with The Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen, The Eric Whitacre Singers and The Gabrieli Consort. European concert highlights include Haydn Harmoniemesse at the Festival de Musique de La Chaise Dieu, France, Handel Dixit Dominus at Santa Maria di Montesanto, Rome, Italy (the church where this majestic piece was first performed in 1707), and Ockeghem Missa Prolationum in the Conzertgebouw Amsterdam.
Peter, currently a Lay Clerk at Southwell Minster, is a freelance tenor, pianist and composer. He is closely involved with the professional choral world, having sung with renowned groups such as Ex Cathedra, the Armonico Consort and the Chapterhouse Choir, York. He studied at Birmingham Conservatoire, and focused primarily on early performance practice and keyboard improvisation. When not singing, he can be found working on restoring one of the multitude of harmoniums, accordions or melodions he has collected over the years.
Elizabeth is a graduate of Royal Holloway, University of London, where she gained an honours degree in Music whilst specialising in solo performance. Alongside her studies, she sang as a choral scholar with the college’s highly acclaimed chapel choir, and also sang regularly as a soloist with Royal Holloway’s Early Music Society and the college’s ‘Undergraduated’ Big Band. Now based in London, Elisabeth enjoys a busy career as a freelance soloist, choral singer and choir administrator. She sings regularly with a number of ensembles including St Martin’s Voices, The Erebus Ensemble, The Portrait Choir, Sansara, Eboracum Baroque, the Choir of St Peter’s Church Eaton Square, The Echoris Ensemble, and the National Youth Chamber Choir of Great Britain, and she is one 5th of the classical-crossover girl group Celeste. Elisabeth is an alumna of the Genesis Sixteen choral training programme, which is generously supported by the Genesis Foundation and run by Harry Christophers and Eamonn Dougan, and she held a choral scholarship at St Martin-in-the-Fields for the academic year 2013-2014. Choral singing has taken Elisabeth on tours of Sweden, Italy, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Malaysia, and the US, as well as all over the UK, and she has sung for world renowned conductors at the BBC Proms including Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Simon Rattle, and Daniel Barenboim. She has had the opportunity to sing on several live radio and television broadcasts including BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Worship, BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and Choral Evensong, BBC One’s Songs of Praise, The Royal British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance, and services at The Cenotaph and St Martin-in-the-Fields to commemorate the 70th Anniversaries of VE Day and VJ Day. She has also recorded critically acclaimed discs for Hyperion.
Alison Rose is the winner of the 2015 Maggie Teyte Prize and a 2017 Leonard Ingrams Award. Born in East London, Alison’s first forays into music making came through the Redbridge Music Service. She subsequently went on to undergraduate studies at the RNCM and postgraduate at the RAM. She is a graduate of the GSMD Opera School and the National Opera Studio and is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.
