Virginia | Kathy Taylor-Jones
Kathy is a mezzo-soprano who joined HOT committee in 2020. She has performed multiple roles for HOT productions, which include Anna in Tobias and the Angel, Mrs Noye in Noye’s Fludde and she will play Virginia Flebbe in our upcoming production The Weekend.
Kathy has appeared with many companies in the UK and abroad including English National Opera, Opera della Luna, Opera North, D'Oyly Carte and the Bregenzer Festspiele. Recent roles include Grimgerde in Die Walküre (London Opera Company), Public Opinion in Orpheus in the Underworld for Opera Della Luna at Buxton International Festival and in London; The Marquise of Berkenfield in The Daughter of the Regiment (also for ODL at Buxton Festival, and at Wilton's Hall, London) and Bianca in The Rape of Lucretia (for Grimeborn at the Arcola Theatre).
Alan |Robert Gildon
Robert Gildon studied singing at Manhattan School of Music, New York, the Tanglewood MusicCenter, Aspen Music Festival and the Britten Pears School in Snape.
Recent work includes Moon Hares & Fairy Queen Project (Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment), Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène (New Sussex Opera), The Merry Widow (Iford Festival) La Fille du Regiment (Opera della lunaat Buxton Festival), Time Capsule Project (Grange Festival) and A Midsummer Night's Dream & Ariadne auf Naxos (Garsington Opera) and Dido and Aeneas (Bruges Early Music Festival). He has also performed roles for London Symphony Orchestra, Grange Park Opera, Celebrate Voice, Cambridge Handel Opera, Opera Project and Bampton Classical Opera .
For Highbury Opera Theatre he has performed in Tobias and the Angel, As you like it and Fever Pitch the opera.
Charlotte | Rachel Maby
Rachel Maby is a mezzo soprano and vocal animateur from Highbury. She joined Highbury Opera Theatre committee in 2018 and directed the Youth Chorus for Fever Pitch the opera and Lost in the Stars.
Rachel trained at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and on the prestigious Joint Course at the Royal Northern College of Music and University of Manchester. She has a love of contemporary opera, with recent roles including Mrs Cratchit in the London première of A Christmas Carol by Thea Musgrave (Laban Theatre) and Palm Reader and Delilah in one-woman opera Sideshows by Leo Geyer (Lilian Baylis, Tête à Tête Festival, Edinburgh Fringe).
Over the lockdown, she has been performing over zoom to care homes for Constella OperaBallet’s Connecting Stars programme; delivering music workshops in Southampton refugee centres with Welsh National Opera and recording a Christmas EP with her choir, Christ Church Jazz Choir.
Donna Canale | Bridget
Donna trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her work has included extensive touring with top UK big bands such as The Glenn Miller Orchestra UK, Andy Prior's 'Magic of Sinatra Show', and 'Big Band Crazy Show'. Donna has many recording credits to her name including the pop chart-busting hits 'Mucho Mambo (Sway)' and 'Mambo Italiano' for dance act Shaft. Her own CD Thinking of You' was released in 2002 to critical acclaim and gained the 4 headphones makr from The Guardian reviews. She is also a founder member of the vocal ensemble 'Clive Dunstall's Voxtet.'
Stephen | Adrian Thompson
Adrian Thompson, tenor, has performed throughout the world. He has worked with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Trevor Pinnock, Harry Christophers, Sir Andrew Davis, Richard Hickox, Sir Colin Davis and Philippe Herreweghe. His breadth stretches from Bach to contemporary music, and he is particularly associated with the works of Britten and Elgar.
Recent engagements include Judith Weir’s In the Land of Uz at the Proms, Khovanshchina and From the House of the Dead for Welsh National Opera, Le Nozze di Figaro with Irish National Opera, Die Zauberflöte and Falstaff at Garsington.
Future engagements include Das Rheingold and Siegfried for the London Philharmonic Orchestra's Ring Cycle and Ivan the
Terrible for Grange Park Opera.
This is Adrian's second performance with Highbury Opera Theatre, having created the role of Park Warden in Fables.
Diana | Joanna Harries
Joanna Harries studied at Cambridge, the Royal Northern College of Music and Royal Scottish Conservatoire of Scotland. She has performed with Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Grange Park Opera, Opera Holland Park and British Youth Opera, and is also an Emerging Artist for the Royal Opera House’s “Opera Dots” programme for children.
She is particularly in demand as a performer of contemporary music and opera, including Prometheus in Tim Benjamin’s new opera The Fire of Olympus, Awen (cover)/Gair ar Gnawd (Welsh National Opera), Tartine in David Blake & Keith Warner’s Scoring a Century (British Youth Opera).
This is Joanna's second performance with Hihghbury Opera Theatre, having performed Girl and Psychiatrist in Fever Pitch the opera.
Hugh Bedales |Cleveland Watkiss
Cleveland Watkiss MBE is an internationally acclaimed jazz singer and educator from East London. He co-founded the Jazz Warriors big band and he performs in major concert halls, festivals and clubs around the world with his VocalSuite - a solo voice performance - and with his quartet, CWQ.
He has won numerous awards, which include Jazz vocalist of the year at the 2017 Parliamentary Jazz Awards, recipient of Wire/Guardian Jazz Awards best vocalist for three consecutive years and 2010 Best Vocalist in the London Jazz Awards. In 2017, he was also nominated for Best Jazz Act in the MOBO Awards.
He studied voice at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and he is now Professor of Jazz Voice at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and Voice Coach for the Artist Development Programme at the Hackney Empire Theatre.
Cleveland was recently cast as the starring role in Julian Joseph and Mike Phillips’ ground-breaking Jazz operas, Bridgetower and Shadowball, to considerable acclaim.
Tom Poldre | Duff
Tom is a committed amateur performer who sings tenor in Eclectic Voices. Originally from Canada, he has sung in a broad range of choirs in Toronto (even a couple of rock bands), as well as the Brooklyn Community Chamber Choir and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Chorus.
His most theatrical role was in Bangkok, as "The Showman" in Peel the Limelight's production of The True History of the Tragic Life and Triumphant Death of Julia Pastrana, the Ugliest Woman in the World.
