April Frederick
is a soprano with a passion for nuance and text which gets to the heart of both music and character. Equally at home on the opera stage, concert hall and recording studio, April has recently premiered the title role of John Joubert’s opera Jane Eyre in a live concert recording for SOMM (due for release in March 2017). With a growing reputation for championing new works, she has also premiered Philip Sawyers’ Songs of Loss and Regret, and Laurence Osborn’s Micrographia with the Riot Ensemble. April’s discography features several premiere recordings including Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and Copland’s Eight Songs of Emily Dickinson. She returns to her beloved Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder in 2017 in Manchester, Blackburn and Nottingham as well as to Knoxville with the Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony and Bach’s St John Passion with Dei Gratia Baroque.

Initially pursuing violin, April began to train in voice at University of Northwestern St Paul with Catherine McCord-Larsen, where her time as a violinist behind the baton shaped her attitude toward the role of a soloist as part the ensemble. Her layered, in-depth preparation and close attention to fine vocal colour were honed by her time in the College Choir, and her life-long preoccupations with Mahler and the effect of World War I on British music and culture and her commitment to music in all its cultural and historical dimensions were also fired by her music history training there. She went on to gain an MMus and PhD at the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied with Jane Highfield, Ian Ledingham and Dominic Wheeler. She sang regularly with the RAM Lyric Song Salon, the RAM Historical Performance ensembles, Academy composers, and in masterclasses with James Bowman, Robert Tear, Graham Johnson, Rudolf Jansen, and Roger Vignoles, with whom she went on to do a full course in lieder and chanson with Vignoles in Austria. She now studies with Jacqueline Straubinger-Bremar.

She has been fortunate to work with an incredible array of fine musicians from a wide variety of traditions, from Jacek Kaspzcyk and the Warsaw Philharmonic to folk musician Joe Jencks, from Graham Johnson and the Young Songmakers Almanac to David Parry and the English Chamber Orchestra, from Dei Gratia Baroque Ensemble (of which she is a founding member) to Indian classical musicians through the innovative Blake-Nazrul project of Song in the City. She is a regular collaborator with pianists Mark Bebbington and Amy de Sybel, the Orchestra of the Swan, the English Symphony Orchestra, the Kensington Chamber Orchestra, Nottingham Harmonic Choir, the Leicester Bach Choir, the Wrexham Symphony Orchestra, and the Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra, and she has worked and recorded with Coro Cervantes (specialising in Iberian and Latin American music) and the Elysian singers. She was also involved in the launch of the Beethoven Orchestra for Humanity. ...

Thomas Humphreys
is fast establishing himself as one of the most in demand baritones of his generation.

In opera, his roles include Don Giovanni (Don Giovanni), Il Conte Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Guglielmo (Cosi fan tutte), Escamillo (Carmen), Marcello (La boheme), Tomsky (Pique Dame), Jake Wallace (La fanciulla del West) among others for many of the major opera companies across the UK. He was recently critically acclaimed for his role as Il Conte Almaviva in Dorset Festival Opera’s production of Le nozze di Figaro, directed by Paul Carr and conducted by Maestro Jose-Miguel Esandi.

Thomas is equally in high demand on the concert platform, regularly performing with the premiere choirs and orchestras in the UK, notably the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, English Symphony Orchestra, the London Mozart Players and the City of London Choir. He recently made his Royal Festival Hall debut singing Requiem (Verdi) with the London Mozart Players. His repertoire includes Messiah (Handel), Elijah (Mendelssohn), St. John Passion (Bach), Christmas Oratorio (Bach), Ein deutches Requiem (Brahms), Requiem (Mozart), Requiem (Faure), The Creation (Haydn), Nelson Mass (Haydn), Five Mystical Songs (Vaughan Williams).

In recital, career highlights include a recital of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov Romances in Moscow and also concerts for the Armonie della Magna Graecia festival in Calabria, Italy. He has performed a live broadcast recital of Schubert Lieder for Radio Varna in Bulgaria. Before the pandemic, Thomas performed Schubert’s Die Winterreise for the first time.

Future plans include Requiem (Verdi) at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford and Mass in B Minor (Bach) with the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Orchestra.

English Symphony Orchestra
Founded by William Boughton and former members of the Midlands Radio Orchestra in 1976 as the Vivaldi Chamber Orchestra then later the English String Orchestra, the ESO soon earned an international reputation for performances of English music, made over fifty recordings and began touring regularly in Europe. Over time, the orchestra’s repertoire expanded to include the full breadth of orchestral music, and the ESO grew to become the English Symphony Orchestra. Ever since then, “ESO” has served as an acronym with a dual meaning.

From the earliest years of the orchestra under the leadership of William Boughton, the ESO have had a long and distinguished history of collaboration with legendary figures of British music making. The ESO have worked with a distinguished list of instrumentalists, composers and conductors, including Nigel Kennedy, Steven Isserlis, Daniel Hope, Michael Tippett, Nicholas Maw and Yehudi Menuhin, who was appointed the ESO’s Principal Guest Conductor in 1991, and led the orchestra on a number of international tours. British music has always been a central part of the orchestra’s mission. Vernon “Tod” Handley became the orchestra’s second Principal Conductor in 2007, and led the orchestra until his death.

Appropriately for an orchestra based in Elgar’s home town, the ESO has made many acclaimed recordings of that composer’s music, and that of major 20th century British composers including Vaughan Williams, Britten, Butterworth and Bridge. The ESO discography also highlights a commitment to the music of our time; in addition to the notable recordings which grew out of the orchestra’s affiliation with Sir Michael Tippett, are recordings of music by John Metcalfe, John Joubert, and Michael and Lennox Berkeley. The ESO’s discography also includes Baroque masters such as Boyce and Handel, and composers as diverse as Schnittke, Strauss, Shostakovich, Sibelius and Respighi. Most of the orchestra’s recordings prior to 2006 were for the Nimbus label under the baton of William Boughton, with a few conducted by Yehudi Menuhin and Michael Tippett.

Kenneth Woods
Hailed by Gramophone as a “symphonic conductor of stature” and by The Guardian as a “charismatic conductor,” conductor, rock guitarist, author and cellist Kenneth Woods has worked with many orchestras of international distinction including the National Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Budapest Festival Orchestra and State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra. He has also appeared on the stages of some of the world’s leading music festivals such as Aspen and Lucerne. His work on the concert platform and in the recording studio has led to numerous broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, National Public Radio, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In 2013, he was appointed as the orchestra’s third principal conductor and artistic director, succeeding William Boughton and Vernon Handley. In 2015, he became the second Artistic Director of Colorado MahlerFest, one of only two institutions in North America (the other being the New York Philharmonic) to receive the Gold Medal of the International Gustav Mahler Society.

In 2010, Kenneth Woods became Principal Guest Conductor of Stratford-upon-Avon-based Orchestra of the Swan. He is active with the orchestra in concert as well as recordings, beginning with an all-Mahler CD for Somm Records released to critical acclaim in the spring of 2011. For Avie Records he has embarked on a survey of the world premiere recordings of the four symphonies by Austrian émigré composer Hans Gál alongside those by Schumann. 2012 saw the release of the second volume in this hugely acclaimed series, a Gramophone Editor’s Choice, the release of a new disc of concerti for Japanese instruments with Orchestra of the Swan and Kyo-Shin An Arts, a Record of the Year at MusicWeb International, and the debut CD from his string trio, Ensemble Epomeo, Critic’s Choice in Gramophone and Disc of the Month at MusicWeb. Other recordings made in 2012 include a disc of Franck and De Falla with the Royal Philharmonic, Brahms with Orchestra of the Swan, and volume 3 of the Schumann/Gál series. Kenneth Woods made his commercial recording debut as a conductor in sessions for Avie Records with the Northern Sinfonia. That disc of world-premiere recordings of music by Hans Gál has been hailed for its “committed performances”, “first class” and “quick witted” interpretations, and “orchestral playing throughout most assured.”

Woods’ unique gifts were widely acknowledged early on by some of today’s leading conductors. In the spring of 2001, he was selected by Leonard Slatkin to be one of four participants in the National Conducting Institute at the Kennedy Center, where he made his National Symphony debut. Toronto Symphony Music Director Peter Oundjian has praised Woods as “a conductor with true vision and purpose. He has a most fluid and clear style and an excellent command on the podium… a most complete musician.”

In addition to a vast orchestral repertoire spanning from the Classical masters to the present day, Woods has conducted critically praised productions of operas from Puccini to Britten, and ballet scores as diverse as Giselle, the Nutcracker and Firebird. Woods’ work as an active proponent of contemporary music includes collaborations with such composers as John Corigliano, Philip Sawyers, John McCabe, Jennifer Higdon and Peter Lieberson. As music director of the Oregon East Symphony from 2000-9, Kenneth transformed a tiny orchestra in a remote, rural area into possibly the most talked-about orchestra in the Pacific Northwest, winning universal praise for their nationally celebrated “Redneck Mahler” series, progressive programming and innovative youth outreach. In June 2010, he was invited by the Stradivari Trust to conduct their 25th anniversary concert, featuring a string orchestra of many of the world’s leading soloists and chamber musicians including Natalie Clein, Lawrence Power, Guy Johnston, Matthew Trussler and the Endellion and Fitzwilliam String Quartets.

A respected mentor, in 2005 Woods was asked by the musicians of the Rose City (Oregon) Chamber Orchestra to found a new professional training institute for young conductors. In just a few years under his leadership, the Rose City International Conductor’s Workshop became widely recognized as one of the leading training centers for young conductors, drawing students from the world’s leading conservatories and nations as diverse as Argentina, Japan, Korea, Germany, Spain, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, Russia and Canada.

As a cello soloist and chamber musician, Woods’ collaborators have included members of the Toronto, Chicago and Cincinnati symphonies, the Minnesota, Gewandhaus and Concertgebouw orchestras and the La Salle, Pro Arte, Tokyo and Audubon quartets. He is currently cellist of the string trio Ensemble Epomeo, with whom he performs regularly in the UK, Europe and the USA.

A widely read writer and frequent broadcaster, Woods’ blog, A View from the Podium, is one of the 25 most popular classical blogs in the world. He has spoken on Mahler on NPR’s All Things Considered and BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme.