About the Artists

soprano

Lydia Teuscher was born in Freiburg, Germany and studied at the Welsh College of Music and Drama and at the Hochschule für Musik in Mannheim. Recent highlights include Ännchen Der Freischütz for the Opernhaus Zurich, Eurydice in Gluck’s Orfeo with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Laurence Cummings, Caliste in Telemann’s Pastorelle en musique with Ensemble 1700, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie/Guillermo García Calvo, Mozart’s Requiem in the Wiener Konzerthaus with the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich/Heinz Ferlesch and Fauré’s Requiem with the Los Angeles Philharmonic/Bernard Labadie. In opera, Lydia has sung Pamina Die Zauberflöte at the Salzburg Mozartwoche, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Bolshoi, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich and Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin; Susanna Le nozze di Figaro at the Glyndebourne Festival, Dresdner Semperoper, Staatstheater Karlsruhe, at the Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Japan and in concert with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and Jonathan Nott; Hero Béatrice et Bénédict at the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan; Zerlina Don Giovanni for the Bolshoi and Gretel Hänsel und Gretel for the Glyndebourne Festival, Dresdner Semperoper and

Saito Kinen Festival.

She collaborates regularly with conductors such as René

Jacobs, Jonathan Cohen, Emmanuelle Haïm, Sir Roger

Norrington, Helmuth Rilling, Markus Stenz and Bernard

Labadie and recent highlights have included Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire with the Ensemble of the Bayerische

Staatsoper; Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the London

Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding; Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Sylvain Cambreling and Handel’s Messiah with the

Orchestre National de Lille and Jan Willem de Vriend.

contralto

Anative of Jupiter, Florida, Avery Amereau studied at Mannes College of Music and The Juilliard School, where she was the proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship and the Shoshana Foundation 2017 Richard F Gold Career Grant. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2016 as the Madrigal Singer in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. The New York Times praised her performance as “captivating…. [Amereau] stood out for the unusually rich, saturated auburn timbre of her voice.” She has since made her house and role debut for the Hannover Staatsoper (Alcina/Bradamante), and appeared at Glyndebourne Festival (Dryad/Ariadne), Santa Fe Opera (Olga/Eugene Onegin), Seattle Opera (Ursula/Beatrice et Benedict), Opera Columbus (Carmen), Grand Théâtre de Genève (Cherubino/Nozze di Figaro), the Salzburg Festival (Page/Salome), as well as her house and role debut as Eduige/Rodelinda at Opera de Lille, reprising the role for Opera de Lyon. Exceptional in baroque repertoire, whilst at Juilliard she performed with the school’s historical performance department under such conductors as William Christie and Maasaki Suzuki, and sang at the Bachfest Leipzig and the Boston Early Music Festival. Recent concerts include the world premiere of The Listeners by Caroline Shaw on a US concert tour with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Messiah with Bernard Labadie and the National Arts Centre Orchestra, her debut with the Early Opera Company in Dido and Aeneas at Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Vivaldi arias with the Orchestra of St Luke’s in New York, Mozart’s Requiem with the Rhode Island Philharmonic under Bramwell Tovey, and Bach’s St John Passion and Duruflé’s Requiem with the Voices of Ascension, New York. Among her many Messiah performances are the Phoenix Symphony, Nashville Symphony, University Musical Society of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Saint Thomas Church Choir. Elsewhere, she has sung Berlioz Les Nuits D’été and Brahms Alto Rhapsody with the American Classical Orchestra under Thomas Crawford, and concerts of Handel and Vivaldi with the Santa Fe Pro Musica. Avery’s debut solo album of Handel arias with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Nicholas McGegan was released in 2020 to huge critical acclaim.

tenor

Acclaimed for the clarity and beauty of his singing and dynamic stage presence, British tenor Gwilym Bowen performs internationally with orchestras and ensembles of the highest calibre. The years 2020-21 being somewhat disrupted, his most recent engagements include James MacMillan’s All the Hills and Vales Along at the Edinburgh Festival; Dussek’s Messe Solemnelle with the Academy of Ancient Music; a Purcell programme, ‘Gabriel – An Entertainment with Trumpet’ with The English Concert, Alison Balsom and Harry Bicket at Barbican, Messiah with the Royal Liverphool Philharmonic Orchestra and Queensland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stephen Layton and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Oslo Philharmonic under François Leleux. With repertoire ranging from the Baroque to the contemporary, with a specialist interest in Bach, Monteverdi and Handel his operatic highlights include Valletto L’incoronazione di Poppea for Angers-Nantes Opéra; Eurimaco/Giove Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria at The Grange Festival; Damon Acis and Galatea and multiple roles in Poppea and Ulisse with Academy of Ancient Music at the Barbican, the Ateneul Roman in Bucharest and Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice; Sylph in Rameau Zaïs with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at Queen Elizabeth Hall and Father in Hasse’s Piramo e Tisbe with The Mozartists. Opera roles have also included Tom Rakewell The Rake’s Progress and Pelléas Pelléas et Mélisande; forthcoming engagements include debuts at Opera de Lille, L’atelier lyrique de Tourcoing and Opéra de Montréal, and a return to The Grange Festival as Snout A Midsummer Night’s Dream In concert, Gwilym has sung Evangelist in the St. John Passion with John Butt and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and the St. Matthew Passion for De Nederlandse Bachvereniging and Auckland Philharmonia, Bach cantatas with Masaaki Suzuki at Lincoln Center; Monteverdi and Schütz with the Dunedin Consort; Christmas Oratorio across Australia with Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Das Lied von der Erde with the City of London Sinfonia; Ernst Wilhelm Wolf’s Passionsoratorium with Die Kölner Akademie; Messiah with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Hanover Band and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; and Bach Mass in B Minor with the OAE at St John’s, Smith Square. His recordings include the St. John Passion arias with De Nederlandse Bachvereniging and in a world-first Welsh language translation, Mass in B Minor with the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge and OAE for Hyperion, Petrus in Handel’s Brockes-passion with AAM and Concerto Copenhagen, and the world premiere recording of Dussek’s Messe solemnelle. Born in Hereford, Gwilym was a choral scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating with double-First class honours in Music, before studying at the Royal Academy of Music.

Ashley Riches bass-baritone

British bass-baritone Ashley Riches studied English at the University of Cambridge where he was a member of the King’s College Choir under Stephen Cleobury. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. A former Jette Parker Young Artist, his roles for the Royal Opera House include Morales Carmen, Mandarin Turandot, Baron Douphol La Traviata and Officer Les Dialogues des Carmelites. For the English National Opera, he has sung Escamillo Carmen, Count Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro, Schaunard La Bohème and the Pirate King The Pirates of Penzance. Elsewhere, he has appeared as Brander Le damnation de Faust for the Glyndebourne Festival under Robin Ticciati; Claudio Agrippina at the Grange Festival; Don Giovanni, Harasta The Cunning Little Vixen, and Ibn-Hakia Iolanta for Opera Holland Park; Simon Peter in Schubert’s Lazarus in a new Frederic Wake-Walker production at the Potsdamer Winteroper; and Count Almaviva in Tokyo. Highlights on the concert platform include Bernardino Benvenuto Cellini, Berlioz Lelio and Verdi’s Requiem with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra under Sir John Eliot Gardiner; The Silver Tassie with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Ryan Wigglesworth; Bernstein’s Wonderful Town with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle recorded for LSO Live; a European tour of Giulio Cesare & Agrippina under Christophe Rousset with Les Talens Lyriques; recordings and tours of The Fairy Queen and King Arthur with the Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh; Aeneas Dido & Aeneas and King Arthur with the Academy of Ancient Music under Richard Egarr; Schumann’s Requiem (also Egarr), Handel’s Solomon and Israel in Egypt with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Peter Dijkstra; Brahms’ Requiem and Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the BBC Symphony Orchestra; Sonmus/ Cadmus Semele with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Rousset; and Handel’s Messiah with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under Trevor Pinnock. In the 2021/22 season Ashley sings Tippet’s Midsummer Marriage with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner, Haydn’s Creation with the Academy of Ancient Music and Laurence Cummings, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, a US tour of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Egarr, a European tour of Handel’s Messiah with the Basel Chamber Orchestra and McCreesh, Handel’s Solomon with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, and Bach’s St John Passion with The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam under Trevor Pinnock. A keen recitalist, and former BBC New Generation Artist 20162018, Ashley has collaborated with pianists including Graham Johnson, Iain Burnside, Julius Drake, Joseph Middleton, Anna Tilbrook, James Baillieu, Simon Lepper, Gary Matthewman and Sholto Kynoch. Ashley has a fast-growing discography including the BBC Music Magazine 2020 Recording of the Year, Purcell’s King Arthur with Gabrieli and Wonderful Town with the LSO and Sir Simon Rattle. Last season he released his debut solo-disc for Chandos, Musical Zoo.