Charles Cunliffe is a bass-baritone studying with Giles Underwood and Joseph Middleton at the RAM. In 2019, he was put forward by the RAM for outstanding studentship, and was awarded the Silver Medal by the Company of Musicians. Charles has a strong affinity for song, and in 2019, he recorded the baritone solos in Vaughan Williams’ Love bade me welcome and Finzi’s In terra pax for BBC Radio 3, under the baton of David Hill MBE. Charles also performed alongside Dame Sarah Connolly at last year’s Oxford Lieder Festival. In September, Charles will be joining Royal Academy Opera. 

Francesca Orlando is a British-Italian pianist who has performed internationally as soloist, accompanist and chamber musician. In 2020, Francesca was awarded a Fellowship at the RAM, where she completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Solo Piano Performance under the tutelage of Prof. Joanna MacGregor and Diana Ketler respectively. She has performed in acclaimed concert venues such as the Wigmore Hall, St James’ Piccadilly, Royal Academy of Arts, and St George’s, Bristol. In 2021, she received first prize in “Premio Crescendo”, Florence and Concorso Internazionale “Città di Massa”. She currently studies in Vienna with Lilya Zilberstein and is receiving regular masterclasses with Eliso Virsaladze in Fiesole, Italy.

Charlotte Bowden is currently studying at the RCM Opera Studio with Rosa Mannion. She has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, Cadogan Hall, Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh Festival and made her Wigmore Hall debut as Orfeo in Handel Parnasso in festa for the LHF. She was awarded Second Prize and the Audience Prize in the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards. Recent highlights include Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) as a young artist at Opera Holland Park and Pamina in (Die Zauberflöte) for the RCM. She will play Barbarina for Glyndebourne Festival this summer where she will also be a Jerwood Young Artist. 

South African pianist Roelof Temmingh completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Music, London, studying piano with Nigel Clayton and Dina Parakhina, and was awarded the Tagore Gold Medal. He is currently the Constant/Kit Lambert Junior Fellow at the RCM. A passionate collaborative pianist, he has performed with chamber groups and singers at the Royal Festival Hall, the Buxton Festival, the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room, and recorded at Abbey Road Studios.​

Joël Terrin, the Swiss baritone studied in Lausanne with Frédéric Gindraux before moving to London to work with Prof. Rudolf Piernay at the GSMD on the Artist Diploma course. He also works with Dame Felicity Lott, Eugene Asti and François Le Roux. He has sung many roles with Opéra de Lausanne. In London, he has worked with the London Symphony Orchestra on several projects and at the Wigmore Hall as part of the Hall’s French Song Exchange. The singer, who is a Samling artist, is a 2020 ambassador of song for the Oxford Lieder Festival. 

Canadian pianist, Cole Knutson is a doctoral student at the RCM, supervised by Natasha Loges and in partnership with Oxford Lieder. He is a recent graduate at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama on full scholarship under the tutelage of Julius Drake and Eugene Asti. Recent accolades include Delius Society Prize of the 2021 London Song Festival Competition, the 2020 English Song Prize at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, winner of the 2020 Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform, laureate of the 2017 & 2018 Franz Schubert Institut in Baden bei Wien, and has received support through the Sylva Gelber Music Foundation, Métis Nations Saskatchewan, the Gabriel Dumont Institute, SK Arts, the Guildhall Trust, and the Art Song Foundation of Canada.

Mezzo-soprano Esme Bronwen-Smith is currently studying with Rosa Mannion and graduated with a Master’s from the RCM where she won both the 2020 Lieder and 2021 Lies Askonas competitions. She has sung for festivals such as Oxford Lieder and Leeds Lieder where she won the 2021 Leeds Lieder Young Artist/Schubert Song Prize. She has performed roles such as Cherubino, Le nozze di Figaro (HGO) Unulfo, Rodelinda (RCM Opera), Sāvitri (Barnes Music Festival), The Devil, The Soldier’s Tale (RCM and CSB). Future engagements include Glyndebourne Festival Chorus 2022 and the role of Nerone in ETO’s production of Agrippina this Autumn. 

British-Sri Lankan pianist Avishka Edirisinghe is a first-year student at the Royal College of Music doing a first study in Collaborative Piano under the tutelage of Nigel Clayton, Simon Lepper and Roger Vignoles and a second study in Conducting with Howard Williams. Avishka’s studies are being generously supported by the RCM where he is a Robert Turnbull Piano Foundation Scholar and by Help Musicians, where he is the Henry Richardson Award holder.​