Emily Atkinson, Soprano
Emily Atkinson earned a degree in music education in New York before moving to London to study singing. Since completing her diploma at the Royal College of Music, she has been active in London-based chamber ensembles. She is also a frequent soloist with the Ionian Singers with whom she has premiered several new works and performs regularly in the Sweelinck Ensemble's Bach Vespers series at St Anne’s Lutheran Church. Emily has sung roles in Haydn Die Schöpfung and Bach St Matthew Passion and has been heard on the BBC’s Early Music Show performing Handel Let God Arise with Florilegium and the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge at Ambronay Festival in France. Emily is also an enthusiastic educator and works in London primary schools as a class music teacher and choir director.
Greg Skidmore, Baritone
Born and brought up in Canada, Greg Skidmore earned his BMus from Royal Holloway and was a post-graduate Choral Scholar at Wells Cathedral. He is now a Lay Clerk at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. Recent solo engagements include the St Matthew and St John Passions with Ex Cathedra; Stravinsky’s Canticum Sacrum; the Brahms, Fauré, and Duruflé Requiems, Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers and Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs. Greg has worked with I Fagiolini, The Gabrieli Consort, Ex Cathedra Consort, Tenebrae, A Cappella Portuguesa, Chapelle du Roi, Cappella Amsterdam, and Philharmonia Voices among others. He is a Clarendon Scholar at Oxford University, studying royal music library formation and printed music distribution in early 17th century Portugal.
Robin Burlton, Tenor
Robin Burlton studied music at Edinburgh University and took post-graduate courses at Trinity College of Music where his teachers included Philip Thorby, Tim Travers-Brown and Linda Hirst. He is equally at home as a soloist, in small consort work or in a chorus. Recent solo work has included Bach St John Passion (as evangelist), Stravinsky Les Noces and Pulcinella, Carissimi Jephte and Buxtehude Membra Jesu Nostri. Recent consort work has included English Jesuit music with Cappella Fede and Peter Leech, Stockhausen at the Lower Machen Festival, and Berio and Monteverdi at the Cheltenham Festival with the ensemble Rubythroat. He has done chorus work for René Jacobs and Laurence Cummings amongst others and discussed Bach cantatas with Ton Koopman as part of his academic work. He is also a composer, writing for Christchurch, Chelsea where he sings regularly, and composing and arranging for The 1607 Ensemble.
Andrew Pickett, Alto
Andrew Pickett is the first, and so far only, counter-tenor to originate from New Brunswick, Canada. After earning master’s degrees in both biochemistry and music in that country, he went on to study at the Royal College of Music, where he learned with Ashley Stafford. His current teacher is Andrew Watts. Recent roles include Refugee (cover) in Dove Flight (British Youth Opera), Gandarte in Handel Poro (London Handel Festival), Ottone L’incoronazione di Poppea (Il Corpo Cantante), Sorceress Dido and Aeneas (Woodhouse Opera); and Tolomeo in Giulio Cesare (Summer Opera Lyric Theatre, Toronto). This autumn he played Arasse in the modern premiere of Hasse Siroe (Ensemble Serse) and Alto Chorus in Handel Acis and Galatea (New European Opera). Concert performances include Bach St John Passion (Manchester Cathedral), Bach Mass in B Minor (Royal College of Music) and Purcell King Arthur (Britten-Pears International Summer School, Aldeburgh). He has a keen interest in new compositions for countertenor, winning the top vocal prize at the inaugural ‘Sing A New Song’ competition at the RCM. For more information including recordings and concert appearances, visit www.andrewpickett.com.