The soloists

We are delighted to introduce the soloists for the performance.

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North-East born Soprano, Clare Tunney is the ‘Sir Elton John’ and ‘Toni V Fell’ scholar at the Royal Academy of Music where she trains with Kathleen Livingstone and Christopher Glynn and sings with Academy’s prestigious, ‘Song Circle’. From September 2018, Clare will become a member of Royal Academy Opera, where she will perform fully staged Operas for    the next 2 years. Her solo Oratorio work includes Verdi Requiem (Guildford Cathedral and Romsey Abbey), Poulenc Stabat Mater (St.John Smith Square), Haydn Creation (Durham Cathedral), Dvorak Stabat Mater, Brahms Requiem and Mendelssohn Elijah. Her operatic roles to date include ‘Arminda’ La Finta Giardinera (Ryedale Festival Opera), 'Valencienne' The Merry Widow, 'Lady Billows' Albert Herring, ‘Smith’ in Die Dreigroschenoper (Royal Academy Opera), 'Cherubino' The Marriage of Figaro, 'Dido' Dido and Aeneas and this summer, she will make her debut as ‘Fiordiligi’ in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte.

In 2017, Clare was awarded first place in the prestigious ‘National Mozart Competition’, where she also won the Art Song category. Other achievements include placing 3rd in London Song Festival’s English Song Masterclass with Sir Thomas Allen, placing 2nd in the Isabel Jay Operatic Prize at RAM (2016 and 2017), a finalist in the Richard Lewis Competition, Arthur Burcher Memorial Prize, the John McAslan Prize and Academy’s representative in the 'Kathleen Ferrier Bursary Competition'. Clare is generously supported by Help Musicians UK, The Royal Society of Musicians and The Josephine Baker Trust.

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Hannah Poulsom

Mezzo-soprano Hannah Poulsom is the recipient of the Stroma Sutherland Award at RAM, where she is currently in her second year with Royal Academy Opera. Here, she studies with Nuccia Focile, Raymond Connell and Jonathan Papp. Prior to joining RAO, she received a Masters with Distinction from the Academy.

Her recent and upcoming operatic performances with RAO include: Carmen (La Tragedie de Carmen – Peter Brook), Minskwoman (Flight – Dove), Frau Peachum (Die Dreigroschenoper – Weill), Junon (Orphee aux Enfers – Offenbach) performed at Hackney Empire, and Bradamante (Alcina – Handel).

In the autumn of 2017, Hannah created the role of Verily Romily for Surrey Opera’s World Premiere Tour of The Life to Come, based on the E.M.Forster story of the same title, by Louis Mander and with libretto by Stephen Fry.

Her recent and future concert repertoire comprises Verdi’s Requiem at Guildford Cathedral, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Berlioz’s Enfance du Christ at King’s College London Chapel, and a concert performance of Handel’s Teseo,  in which she enjoyed exploring the role of Medea, with the London Handel Festival, under the baton of David Yates.

Hannah is also the recipient of the Alice Gamble Award and is sponsored by the Josephine Baker Trust and gratefully acknowledges its support.

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Kieran Carrel

Kieran Carrel (born 1996) studied in Cologne, Germany with the renowned German tenor Christoph Prégardien before continuing his studies with distinguished Scottish tenor Neil Mackie at the Royal Academy of Music. He frequently appears as a soloist in oratorio and recital across Europe. Kieran has appeared on the operatic stage in roles such as Kilian in C.M. Weber’s Freischütz and Sakristan in Siegfried Wagner’s An allem ist Hütchen Schuld under Lionel Friend, which was recently released on DVD with Naxos. Further roles include Flute in Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Contino Belfiore in Ryedale Festival’s production of Mozart’s La finta giardiniera with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

In December 2016 Kieran had his debut at Wigmore Hall, accompanied by Graham Johnson. He has since returned to the hall. As part of the Schubert Weekend with Thomas Hampson and Wolfgang Rieger, he has recently sung at the newly opened Pierre-Boulez-Saal in Berlin. Kieran is recipient of the Royal Academy’s Douglas Samuel & Birdie Matthews Award and regularly cast a soloist in the Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Cantatas series, where he has sung under the baton of Philippe Herreweghe. Kieran is generously supported by the ABRSM.

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Nicholas Mogg

Nicholas Mogg studies on the Opera Course at the Royal Academy of Music with Mark Wildman and Iain Ledingham. He is an Oxford Lieder Young Artist, a Britten-Pears Young Artist, a Park Lane Group Young Artist, a Drake Calleja Scholar, a soloist for the RAM/Kohn Foundation Bach Cantata Series, and a member of the Academy’s prestigious Song Circle. Nicholas won the 2017 Royal Over-Seas League Singers’ Prize, the Richard Lewis/Jean Shanks Award, and in 2015 won the Joan Chissell Schumann Lieder Prize, the Elena Gerhardt Lieder Prize, and the Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform. He is the recipient of the Baroness de Turckheim Award, the Thompson Family Charitable Trust Award, and the Norman Ayrton Scholarship. Nicholas is extremely grateful for the generous support of the Robert Easton Award, Drake Calleja Trust, Lady Clare Fund, George Law, the Josephine Baker Trust, the Drapers’ Company, a Help Musicians UK Sybil Tutton Award, and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust. He previously read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a choral scholar.

Operatic roles to date include Peachum in Die Dreigroschenoper, Jupiter in Orphée aux Enfers at Hackney Empire, Melisso in Alcina for Royal Academy Opera. Nicholas has sung at the Aix-en-Provence Opera Festival, the Bavarian State Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as an Alvarez Young Artist at Garsington Opera, and will be part of the chorus at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 2018 where he will also sing Hausknecht in Der Rosenkavalier.

Nicholas has also appeared as a soloist at the Barbican Hall, Concertgebouw, Palau de la Música Catalana, Bozar Brussels, KKL Luzern, and Philharmonie de Paris with conductors including Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Ton Koopman, and Sir Roger Norrington. He has established a successful duo partnership with

pianist, Jâms Coleman, and together they have performed recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Oxford Lieder Festival, Two Moors Festival, Roman River Festival, and the Ryedale Festival. Engagements in 2017/18 include the title role in Don Giovanni and Steward in Flight for Royal Academy Opera, Handel Messiah for Edward Higginbottom in Spain, Schubert Schwanengesang at the Two Moors Festival with Jâms Coleman, and a return to the Oxford Lieder Festival for Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem.