ARTISTS' BIOGRAPHIES
This page contains biographical information on the soloists who are appearing with the South London Singers this season. Where the artists have Website, we have provided a link so that you may find out more about them.
Emma Brain-Gabbott
Emma Brain-Gabbott, soprano, was born and educated in Cheltenham before going on to Trinity College Choir, she studied singing with David Lowe. She is currently studying with Andrew Watts and has also taken part in master classes with Noelle Barker and James Bowman. She has also studied Handel and Puccini with Dame Felicity Lott.
Emma's wide oratorio repertoire includes Verdi Requiem, Elgar The Kingdom, Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle, Orff Carmina Burana and Mozart C Minor Mass among others. She also sings with such ensembles as Polyphony, the Choir of the Age of Enlightenment, The Finzi Singers and English Consort. With the latter she has toured extensively in recent months to venues in Spain, Turkey, Germany, Austria and Japan, performing Bach's St Matthew Passion both as a soloist and as a chorus member. Other recent projects have included solos for BBC Wales' broadcast of Bernstein's Mass, and ongoing project of recording Haydn's Masses with Richard Hickox and performances of Bach's B Minor Mass, Handel's Messiah and Wagner's Parsifal in the BBC Proms.
On the stage Emma has sung in Dallapiccola's The Prisoner with English National Opera and played the role of Pride in the première of Will Todd's Damned and Divine for the ENO Studio. She also took the role of Leila in Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe with the CBSO in Warwick and Symphony Hall Birmingham.
Future engagements include tours of Spain and Germany with the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, performing Bach's St Matthew Passion, Mozart's C Minor Mass with Ashford Choral Society, Handel's Messiah with Cheltenham Choral Society, and recordings of Aida and Turandot for Opera Rara.
Keziah Thomas
Keziah Thomas, harpist, was born in London in 1980. She started harp lessons at the age of ten, gaining an ARCM diploma and solo debuts at the Wigmore Hall and the Royal Albert Hall whilst still at school. She completed her studies with Daphne Boden at the Royal College of Music in 2002 and was awarded the Douglas Whittaker, Jack Morrison and Marie Goosens Harp Prizes.
Since graduating, Keziah has achieved a busy career as a soloist and chamber musician appearing at major venues and festivals throughout the UK including the Purcell Room, St James’s Piccadilly, Blackheath Halls and the Bath, Rye, Buxton and Three Choirs Festivals. Keziah was the winner of the 2003 London Harp Competition and, in May 2008, won the Camac Harp Competition, her prize including a debut recital in Paris in 2009.
Internationally, Keziah has performed at the 8th, 9th and 10th World Harp Congresses in Geneva, Dublin and Amsterdam and the 2003 Journées de la Harpe Festival in France with her harp duo Double Action. Keziah recently undertook a tour of Japan to critical acclaim, presenting a series of solo recitals as an ambassador for Aoyama Harps.
Mark Dobell
Mark Dobell, tenor, hails from Tunbridge Wells and was a choral scholar at Clare College, Cambridge, where he read Classics. He later studied as a postgraduate at the Royal Academy of Music, and was awarded the Clifton Prize for the best final recital.
Mark has been engaged as a soloist throughout Europe and North America by such eminent conductors as Harry Christophers, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Sir Roger Norrington. His extensive concert and oratorio repertoire includes many of the major works of Handel, Bach and Mozart, as well as pieces by composers as varied as Monteverdi, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Britten and Karl Jenkins. Recent highlights include performances of James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Monteverdi’s Vespers in Budapest, Haydn’s Creation in Liverpool and Handel’s Foundling Hospital Anthem at London’s Cadogan Hall.
On the opera stage, Mark’s roles include Male Chorus in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, Ferrando in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Basilio and Don Curzio in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Doubek in Janáček’s Osud (Garsington Opera) and Acis in Handel’s Acis and Galatea. Most recently he played Pedrillo in Mozart’s Rescue from the Seraglio for the Ryedale Festival.
Equally established as a consort singer, Mark has performed both at home and abroad with many leading choirs and consort groups, such as The Sixteen, The Tallis Scholars, The Cardinall’s Musick, I Fagiolini and The Monteverdi Choir. Since March 2003 he has been a member of the prestigious mediaeval quartet The Orlando Consort, and in September 2006 he took up a position in the choir of Westminster Abbey.
Julian Empett
Julian Empett, bass, is a graduate of King’s College London. He studied singing with the British baritone David Wilson-Johnson and the Husler exponent Peter Harrison, and was also a student of the Mayer Lismann Opera Workshop at Covent Garden and of Morley Opera. In 2002 he made his Proms solo début with The English Concert under Trevor Pinnock, taking the role of the High Priest in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.
As an oratorio soloist he has also appeared at the Wigmore Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Cadogan Hall and St. John’s Smith Square. Forthcoming engagements include Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in Cheltenham Town Hall, Beethoven’s Choral Symphony in Cambridge’s Guildhall, Monteverdi’s Vespers and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.
Julian Empett is a Lay Vicar at Westminster Abbey. As well as singing the daily services he has taken part in numerous TV and radio broadcasts, most notably as soloist at the funeral in 2002 of HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. In December 2003 he sang the baritone solo in Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on Christmas Carols in Westminster Abbey broadcast on Classic FM on Christmas Day. Solos in Philip Moore’s anthem The King and the Robin, Patrick Gowers’s Viri Galilaei, Leighton’s A Christmas Caroll and Walton’s The Twelve appear on the Hyperion label. He has also given several song recitals: most significant among these have been Sir Arthur Somervell’s Tennyson’s ‘Maud’ with pianist John Nightingale, and Schubert's Winterreise, with pianist Raymond Lewis. His wider singing career has included work with The Sixteen, Tenebrae, The English Concert, Collegium Musicum 90, European Voices, The King’s Consort, The Choir of the Age of Enlightenment and the Tallis Scholars.
David Thorne, accompanist of the South London Singers, was born and educated in Exeter. He plyed for many services in the cathedral there while still at school and was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Church Music when it was based at Addington Palace in Croydon. He read music at Bristol University and went on to spend most of his career teaching in Portsmouth, serving as Assistant Organist at Portsmouth's Anglican Cathedral for over 20 years and latterly as Director of Music at the Roman Catholic Cathedral there.
David now concentrates on accompanying, composing and arranging. Two of his anthems are included in Anthems for Flexible Voices, and some of his descants will be published in 2010 by Oxford University Press. He has played regularly for BBC Radio 4's Daily Service and has conducted several programmes in this series. He has also recorded over 100 hymns for BBC Radio 2's Sunday Half-hour. David is probably best known for The Mass of St Thomas, a congregational setting of the Eucharist which has become one of the most popular of the genre. A second setting, The Trinity Mass, was publshed in September 2009.
The Sospiri Chamber Orchestra, which started life as the Ex-Bromley Youth Chamber Orchestra, was founded by Jonathan Woodall in April 2003. Members of the orchestra range from top professionals (Stephen Payne) to enthusiastic amateurs (Jonathan Woodall), but they are all united in their enthusiasm for making music together and having a drink or two after rehearsals. The orchestra has toured Belgium, France and Germany and, for the seventh year in a row, will be giving a January concert at St. Mary’s Church, College Road, Bromley (Saturday 9th January 2010), with the performance to include works by Bach, Mozart and Dvořák. The South London Singers warmly welcome the orchestra back following their two previous appearances with us in Britten’s Saint Nicolas in 2006 and Handel’s Messiah last year.