Mezzo-soprano

Born in Yorkshire. Awarded a CBE in 1970, created a Dame of the British Empire (DBE) in 1976 and a Companion of Honour in 1994.

The Times:
'Has there been a more perfect singer than Janet Baker? She has been a mezzo-soprano of pure beauty and warmth, with a glowing stage presence, and a repertory that she was passionate about.'
Dame Janet Baker
BBC Music Magazine:
'Hers was not a big voice, but it was perfectly focused and very beautiful, built on a strong technique and a broad palette of colour. True to the ethos of her native Yorkshire, she was a supremely honest singer - no frills or faking, no grand gestures, no showing-off - and one motivated by a deep sense of responsibility to the composer.'
Rossini's Bianca e Falliero , Otello ,
Rossini Gala , Bruce Ford Serious Rossini
Donizetti's The Elixir of Love , Don Pasquale
Mozart's Don Giovanni , The Magic Flute
Rossini's The Thieving Magpie
Verdi's Falstaff
Recitals: Barry Banks , Christine Brewer ,
Bruce Ford 1 , Bruce Ford 2 ,
Elizabeth Futral , Yvonne Kenny 1 ,
Alastair Miles , Dennis O'Neill 2 ,
Alan Opie , Andrew Shore ,
John Tomlinson 1

The Guardian: Wigmore Hall Recital
‘Few lieder performers are so obviously committed to their material as Alice Coote. Each song in her Wigmore recital, devoted largely to Mahler and Schubert, was presented as much physically as vocally, with the mezzo's stance and bearing included in her total interpretative package. She acted them as if they were

Through its recordings with Chandos and Opera Rara, the Peter Moores Foundation has been associated with these Featured Artists over many years. They range from singers who are on the threshold of their careers to established international artists, several of whom are PMF Scholars, as well as orchestras and conductors.
31 July 2010 
Handel's Julius Caesar ,
+ highlight disc
Donizetti's Mary Stuart ,
+ highlight disc
Massenet's Werther
Barry Banks
Tenor PMF Scholar 1984-1986

Born in UK

Donizetti's The Elixir of Love
The Observer: 'Barry Banks’ Nemorino could hardly be better: flexible, secure in intonation and silken in tone... he was an inspired choice for the part.'

Rossini’s Ermione
The New York Times: ‘Barry Banks was a superb Oreste, creating the wonderful illusion that his cascading roulades were not some artificial vocal preening but the organic expression of emotion boiled over.'

Rossini’sLa Cenerentola
The New York Times: ‘Barry Banks... proved a commanding Prince, mainly because his tenor
Patricia Bardon
Mezzo-soprano

Born in Ireland

The Guardian: 'the wonderful Irish mezzo' came to prominence as the youngest ever prize-winner in the Cardiff Singer of the World competition.'

Rossini's Ermione
The Guardian: 'Patricia Bardon's Andromache veered from sorrowing nobility via hysteria to resignation as her child's life became threatened.
Bizet's Carmen
Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin
Wagner's The Flying Dutchman
Wagner's The Rhinegold
The Guardian: 'Patricia Bardon's gorgeously velvety Erda, whose appearance in the final scene provides the evening's only genuine theatrical coup.'
Opera News: 'Patricia Bardon’s rich and eloquent Erda.'

Handel's Giulio Cesare
The New York Times: 'Ms. Bardon brought noble bearing and refinement to her portrayal of the anguished Cornelia. Her sublimely sorrowful duet with the excellent British mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, as Sesto, should advance the cause of Irish-English relations when word reaches overseas.'

Opera News: Saariaho's Adriana Songs adapted from the opera Adriana Mater
Dame Josephine Barstow
Berg's Wozzeck
Janáček's Jenůfa
Poulenc's The Carmelites
Soprano

Born in the UK. Created a Dame of the British Empire (DBE) in 1995.

The Independent: 'Not a singing actress but a supreme actress among singers.'

Poulenc’s The Carmelites
The Guardian: ‘Josephine Barstow is truly terrifying as the near-fundamentalist Mother Marie.’
The Sunday Times: ‘Josephine Barstow is in top form as the fanatical Mother Marie, who provokes the vow of martyrdom, but fails to show for the nuns’ final encounter with destiny.’

Britten's Gloriana
The Sunday Telegraph: '..an unforgettable portrayal of Gloriana, imperious, fickle, dangerous, noble and in the great final scene when she reviews her life, devastatingly moving. This is a performance to class with Callas's Tosca in its total believability.'

Berg's Wozzeck on Chandos Opera in English
BBCi: ‘Josephine Barstow …brings a querulous vulnerability, which makes her scene with the Bible at the beginning of Act 3, looking for comparisons between herself and another fallen woman, Mary Magdalene, particularly poignant.’
Donizetti's La Romanzesca e L'Uomo Nero
Clive Bayley

Bass PMF Scholar

Born in the UK

Seen & Heard: Verdi's Rigoletto 
'... his sinister presence (as Sparafucile), highly committed acting and the wonderful sonorousness of his lower register made up a treasurable assumption of the rôle.'

Opera News: Mozart's Don Giovanni
'Commendatore Clive Bayley's dinnertime confrontation with the Don thrills with power.'

Berg's Wozzeck
Donizetti's Don Pasquale
Janáček's Jenůfa
Mozart's Idomeneo , Don Giovanni
Mussorgsky's Boris Gudonov
Puccini's Madam Butterfly , Turandot
Verdi's Falstaff , Il Trovatore , Verdi - A Celebration
Recitals: Alastair Miles , Dennis O"Neill 1 , Alan Opie
Alice Coote
Verdi's Falstaff
Recitals: John Tomlinson 2
Donizetti's Il diluvio universale
Pia de' Tolomei , Zoraida di Granata
Mozart The Supreme Decorator
Rossini's Adelaide di Borgogna
Bianca e Falliero ,
Elisabetta regina d'Inghilterra
Artist's Collections: Ferme tes Yeux
Essential Opera Rara: Mercadante's Zaira
has the passion and nobility. Mr. Banks maintained those qualities, if more subtly, even when the Prince trades places with his valet, Dandin.’

Rossini’s L'Italiana in Algeri
The Los Angeles Times: ‘Best of the singers is British tenor Barry Banks, a Rossini specialist of unfailing vocal resources and stylish performance. His Lindoro carries this show.’

Mezzo-soprano PMF Scholar 1996

Born Cheshire, UK 

Dame Janet Baker: ‘I've been working a lot with Alice Coote. To work with somebody like that, so gifted, so responsive, so brilliant and imaginative and so immediately understanding of what you're trying to get at is a joy.'

Mozart's Don Giovanni
The Magic Flute
Rossini's The Thieving Magpie
Majella Cullagh

Soprano

Born in Ireland

The Guardian:
Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda
‘The great moment comes in the second act, when the heroine, Mary Stuart - unhistorically - meets Elizabeth. After fruitless grovelling, the imprisoned queen turns on her cousin, daughter of Anne Boleyn, snarling out the ultimate insult: "Vil

bastarda!" Defying memories of Janet Baker in this role, Majella Cullagh rose superbly to the challenge, later crowning her performance in a noble account of her prayer before execution, which got Donizetti's bold tune firmly ringing through one's head.’'

The Sunday Times: Leoncavallo's Pagliacci
'I'd go a long way to hear Majella Cullagh's fabulously trilling Nedda again.'

Rossini's Ricciardo e Zoraida
Rossini's La donna del lago

Verdi’s Attila
The Times: ‘Clive Bayley, as the dastardly hun himself, was more than a match: coiled within his bass was a sneering scorn, a deep world-weariness, and the dark shadows of menace.’
Seen & Heard: ‘Clive Bayley, as Attila, projected the drama of the role strongly through confident use of text and intelligent musicality, to find not only aspects of the warrior but also some introspection within the part.’

Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre
New York Times: ‘Standouts in the strong cast included the bass Clive Bayley as the sniveling Astradamors.’
San Francisco Chronicle: 'Clive Bayley played his unwilling conscript, the henpecked astrologer Astradamors, with vocal flair and enormous agility.'

Christine Brewer

Soprano

Born in St Louis, USA

Wigmore Hall recital
The Guardian: 'Everything about the American soprano Christine Brewer marks her as one of most rewarding vocal artists of our age. For her Wigmore recital she offered a programme of contrasted and rarely performed 20th-century works that confirmed her as one of the most imposing voices of her generation, and one of its keenest musical minds.'

Beethoven's Fidelio
The Times: '... with a high voltage line-up of soloists, this was simply one of the best performances of Beethoven's only opera London has heard for years. Queue all night for a ticket this evening if you have to... Not that anyone on stage could approach the unalloyed gold of Christine Brewer's indefatigable and beautifully sung Leonore.'
Financial Times: 'No soprano today sings Leonora more securely than Christine Brewer: the marriage of line, detail and timbre in "Abscheulicher!" was beyond criticism.'

Wagner's Tristan and Isolde
The Sunday Times: 'Brewer’s vocal opulence, fearlessness and sheer musicality are hard to resist. She is vehement as the angry Irish princess of Act 1 and meltingly beautiful in the sublime O sink hernieder of the love duet in Act 11. She crowns the performance with as overwhelming a Liebestod as we are likely to hear in the theatre today.’

Beethoven's Fidelio
Recitals: Christine Brewer

miniature monodramas, while the mother and the starving child in Mahler's Das Irdische Leben, or the perversely gothic dialogue in Schubert's Der Zwerg between the murderous dwarf and the queen who accepts his right to strangle her - were vividly realised.’

R. Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos
The Independent: 'Coote's fretful composer is a fabulous find: her tone, strength and personality are entrancing; her range and variety should get better still.'
The Guardian: 'Alice Coote's highly strung Composer oozes emotional energy - her singing is glorious.'
The Independent on Sunday: 'Equally rewarding is Alice Coote's Composer: a trim and convincing naïf with a voice as powerful and enigmatic as a big cat. That Coote's phrasing also shows delectable taste and refinement is secondary to the animal impact of her sound.'

New York Times: Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier
‘More uncommon, though, was the sexual hunger and emotional vulnerability she (the Marschallin)revealed during the frolicking love scenes with Count Octavian, here the appealing mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, who convincingly projected the androgynous allure and hormonal 17-year-old boy… The bright-voiced soprano Elizabeth Futral, adorable with her curly locks and sheer white dress, was a delightful Sophie. She and Ms. Coote sang radiantly during the most ravishing love-at-first-sight duet in all of opera.’

The Observer: Donizetti’s Don Pasquale
'The versatile Majella Cullagh proves herself a natural comedienne as Norina, while making light of some fiendish coloratura.’

The Guardian Verdi's La Traviata
'Cullagh is often breathtaking, vividly alert to every shade of meaning in text and score and wonderfully capable of suggesting, vocally as well as physically, the ravages of the illness that consumes her.'

The Guardian: Donizetti’s Pia de’Tolomei
'The great performance… came from Majella Cullagh in the title role – technically staggering, pushing herself to her expressive limits in order to convey Pia’s emotional and moral agony. She has the potential to become one of the great bel canto divas of our time.’
The CD
‘Majella Cullagh's Pia is remarkable - technically exacting, and remorselessly exposing the

The Daily Telegraph: Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito
'Blazing at the centre of a first-rate cast is Alice Coote, in superb voice, breaking the conventions round opera seria to give an electrifyingly vivid portrayal of the lovestruck Sesto.’
The Guardian: ‘Alice Coote sings Sesto with such lustre and ardour…’

The Guardian: BBC Proms Chamber Music 2007
‘Coote… was in spellbinding form for Britten's insidious A Charm of Lullabies, and did tremendous things with The Voice of Desire, which Judith Weir wrote for her four years ago… she opened my ears to Vaughan Williams's vocal writing with a performance of Silent Noon that was breathtaking in its sensual beauty.’

woman's physical, moral and emotional hell.'

The Guardian: Puccini’s La Bohème
‘… the cafe scene is the perfect match for the riot of Parisian street life contained in Puccini's music, and hugely enjoyable. Crowning its verve and gaiety is the bold and brassy Musetta of Majella Cullagh; the ultimate good-time gal who has the men in the chorus swooning credibly at her feet. Dressed in Sue Willmington's stylish 1940s costume, she's like a Rita Hayworth of the boulevards.’

'Mezzo Patricia Bardon gave an enormously impressive performance of Kaija Saariaho's Adriana Songs... The Dublin-born Bardon, who also performed the role of Adriana in the opera's premiere, demonstrated complete internalization of these difficult songs in this, her Philharmonic debut. With creamy high notes and chesty low ones, her impassioned delivery soared easily over the orchestra. In urgent lines she gave flight to a full range of authentic emotions using her voice alone, without resorting to overacting or extraneous gestures.’
Cheryl Barker
Janáček's The Makropulos Case
Puccini's Madam Butterfly

'Strauss’ model for his lust-driven Salome was “a 16-year-old princess with the voice of Isolde”. Few sopranos can truly straddle those extremes but Cheryl Barker… marries them up convincingly… while her insistent demands for the head of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) are disturbing enough, her depraved pleasure in finally kissing the dead prophet’s lips is even more starkly drawn.'
Times Literary Supplement: 'On every front Cheryl Barker's performance is a triumph. Vocally she conveyed Salome's increasing lunacy, her gradual divorce from reality… hers is a performance to admire and relish, if the latter is quite the word for so horrific a dénouement.’

Sydney Morning Herald: Verdi’s La Traviata
'The entire production, with all its colour and action, is outshone - and sometimes outclassed - by the abundant talent of Cheryl Barker and Peter Coleman-Wright. Barker makes a triumphant return to Australia, and to this repertoire. Beautiful, charming and fiercely independent, she is Violetta. She opens her mouth and Verdi's glorious arias come spinning out as effortlessly as if she were making them up on the spot .'

Soprano

Born in Australia

The Stage: Strauss’s Salome

Times Literary Supplement: Janáček’s The Makropulos Case
'Cheryl Barker's pheremone-charged Emilia is a searing revelation, full of voluptuous menace, a lava-like voice pulsating with pain.'

Sydney Morning Herald: Janáček’s Jenůfa
‘Cheryl Barker's Jenůfa is built on what have emerged in recent years as the twin pillars of her art: strength and warmth. This is a deeply human personification of bright youthful optimism, badly scalded by life. Her sound, as she sings one of the great understatements of opera, "I had never thought my life would be like this"… was at once glowing, mellow and penetrating.’

Berg's Wozzeck
The Daily Telegraph: 'In a magnificent cast, there is a superlative cameo from Clive Bayley as the mad Doctor.'
The Independent: 'Clive Bayley played the mad Doctor in one of the best performances of Wozzeck I have ever seen.'
The Times: 'There is no space to do justice to Clive Bayley’s sinister Doctor.'