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Catharine read music at Durham University, and then worked in new media for BBC Radio & Music. She was awarded a scholarship by Trinity College of music where she gained her postgraduate diploma with distinction and took an advanced diploma before going to Glasgow to take the postgraduate opera course at the RSAMD. In her time at Trinity she has been highly commended in the French Song Duo competition, the Ella Kidney Early Music Prize and Soloists’ competition, and won both the Elisabeth Schumann prize for Lieder and the Paul Simm Award for most promising operatic student.
Previous roles include Beatrice Our Man In Havana by Malcom Williamson (a TCM production) the title role in Satie’s Socrate for Sevenoaks Opera, Yum Yum Mikado, Helen La Belle Helene, Dido Dido & Aeneas, Rowan The Little Sweep & Polly Peachum The Threepenny Opera. Concert work includes Bach’s B Minor Mass & St Matthew Passion, Mozart’s Requiem & Coronation Mass, Fauré’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah & Hear My Prayer, Haydn’s ‘Nelson’ Mass and Tippett A Child Of Our Time. Recent performances include Kimberly Quinn, David Blunkett: The Musical, Madama Butterfly for Curtain Call Opera, Fido in Paul Bunyan at Dartington and a return to the Cheltenham Festival as a member of vocal ensemble Ruby Throat to perform Stockhausen’s Stimmung. |
 Catharine Rogers |
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John won a scholarship to take the BMus (Hons) course at Trinity College of Music, and studies with Peter Knapp, having previously studied acting with the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), gaining the gold medal, and singing with Barbara Lowe.
John’s stage experience includes numerous roles in musical theatre and operetta - including Narrator/Mysterious Man - Into the Woods for TCM, and Grosvenor – Patience, at the International G&S Festival 2004, for which he was awarded Best Male voice. In opera; Figaro & Bartolo – Le Nozze di Figaro, Colline – La Boheme, Dr Hasselbacher – Malcolm Williamson’s Our Man in Havana for TCM, and the Sorceress – Dido and Aeneas. As a soloist; Tippett’s A Child of our Time, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch, Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Messiah, a recital of ‘London Songs’ at NPG, Vaughan William’s Serenade to Music at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Future engagements include: Colline - La Boheme, and Plutone - Orfeo - TCM. |
 John Savournin |
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Bárbara Barros studied modern violin under Diana Cummings, whilst reading for a BMus (Hons) at Trinity College of Music London. She gained her postgraduate diploma in baroque violin under Richard Gwilt at TCM with distinction. She has worked and played in master classes given by Andrew Manze, Enrico Onofri, Adrian Butterfield, Margaret Faultless and Walter Reiter amongst others. Bárbara has been the recipient of several awards and prizes such as the Dartington International Music Course award and the Trinity College of Music Scholarship award. As a chamber musician and orchestral player, Bárbara has performed mostly in Europe. She currently freelances with various ensembles and orchestras such as Florilegium, Eubo, Harmony of Nations and Divino Sospiro.
She is a founding member of the new London-based ensemble Melopoetica. In 2006 Barbara obtained the ‘English Concert Junior Fellow ‘ title at TCM along with her group , ‘Melopoetica‘. |
 Barbara de Barros |
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Iason Ioannou was born in Drama, a small town in northern Greece. In Greece he completed his cello studies with A. Filippou and his higher theoretical studies (harmony, counterpoint, fugue) with P. Bekiarides, graduating with distinction. Whilst in Greece he performed with many early music and contemporary music ensembles, performed as a soloist with string orchestras and has recorded music for theatre and cinema. He is a member of the ‘Yannis Mantakas’ choir, with which he has traveled throughout Europe giving concerts both as an accompanist as well as a singer, a founding member of the London based quartet ‘Melopoetica’ and a member of the ‘Youth Chamber Orchestra of Thessaloniki’.
For the academic year of 2003-2004, Iason was awarded a scholarship to continue his research with Susan Sheppard, as a MMus student, on the baroque cello at Trinity College of Music in London. His research was focused on the subject of musical rhetoric and its application specifically on J. S. Bach’s Cello Suites, and was completed in his thesis entitled ‘Ad Imitationem Poetarum: Rhetoric as an Interpretative Tool on J. S. Bach’s Prelude from the Fourth Cello Suite.’ Whilst in London, Iason has performed as a soloist and accompanist in venues including Blackheath Halls, Saint Martin in the Fields, Ranger House, Regent Hall and Charlton House, both on the baroque cello and the viola da gamba. He is the only holder of the Hellenic municipal ‘Exceptional Musician’ award and was recently awarded the ‘City Livery Prize 2004’ and the ‘Wilfred Stiff Prize 2004’ for his final recital and Master in Music respectively. For the year 2004-2005 Iason received a scholarship to continue his studies, in the ‘Postgraduate Advanced Diploma’ course, with Susan Sheppard at Trinity College of Music. |
 Iason Ioannou |
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Mercedes Romero Fernández started to learn the piano when she was 8 years old at the Amati Music school in Granada (Spain), where she also studied oboe and violin. At the age of 15 she won the Concurso de interpretación musical Instituto Generalife of Granada.
Moving to London in 1999 Mercedes studied piano with Philip Fowke and, fascinated by its language of expression, she also took up the harpsichord. In 2003 she was selected to perform Falla’s Fantasía Bética for pianist Alicia de la Rocha in the Curso de interpretación de Música Española in León. Having graduated in 2004, she decided to continue her studies at Trinity College of Music where she is currently doing a Postgraduate in Early Music with harpsichordist John Henry. However, Mercedes’ interest in the harpsichord is inspired by the instrument itself and her imagination has being captured by its expressive capabilities, so her repertoire ranges from the Early Baroque of Frescobaldi to a 20th Century Ligeti. She has been awarded a grant by the Junta de Andalucia (Government of Spain) in support of her studies. Mercedes enters into all her musical rôles with equal enthusiasm. Her committed and musical approach has led to her being called on to accompany in the LSO Discovery series, to be soloist in the London Premier of Hartwell´s Salome Dances for Piano and Orchestra, and to be celeste player in Trinity College Symphony Orchestra (Holst The Planets suite). Her current specialist instrument gives her a repertoire spanning seven centuries of keyboard music. |
 Mercedes Romero Fernandez |
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The costumes for this show were designed and made by the BA (Hons) Costume Interpretation course at Wimbledon School of Art under the supervision of Hazel Pethig. Catrin Thyrsson, who graduated from the course in July this year, is accompanying the performers in Germany and the UK.
Catrin was born in Sweden in 1977. She has a long experience within the cultural field and has a great passion for art, theatre, dance, etc. She was previously studying to become as well as working as an actor. For the past four years she has gone in a slightly different direction and is now specializing within the costume field. |
 Catrin Thyrsson |
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