Congratulations to the trio of Samling Artists pictured above who have all been selected for prestigious young artist programmes next year. Madeline Boreham becomes a Harewood Artist at English National Opera, Daniel Barrett joins Scottish Opera as an Emerging Artist and Hugo Brady will become a Rising Star with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Read on to find out more about their upcoming engagements.
Congratulations also to Francesca Lauri who won the pianist prize at the Ashburnham English Song Awards.
ashburnhamenglishsongawards.co.uk/the-2025-final/
English National Opera
As a Harewood Artist, Madeline Boreham plays Sister Rose in ENO’s first production of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and Michael Lafferty is Older Brother.
In Così fan tutte, Bethany Horak-Hallett makes her ENO house debut as Dorabella alongside Samantha Clarke as Fiordiligi and Andrew Foster-Williams as Don Alfonso.
Carolyn Dobbin makes her role debut as Florence Pike Albert Herring, and Aoife Miskelly is Miss Wordsworth.
Nardus Williams appears in the title role in Handel’s Partenope with William Thomas as Ormonte and Bethan Langford is Hebe, HMS Pinafore.
Scottish Opera
Daniel Barrett begins his time at Scottish Opera in a in a double bill playing Ramiro L’heure espagnole and Grigory Stepanovich Smirnov in The Bear by William Walton.
Continuing in his second year as an Emerging Artist, Edward Jowle takes the title role in Le nozze di Figaro with Alexandra Lowe as his Countess. Edward is also Don Iñigo Gomez / Luka in the Ravel and Walton double bill and Schaunard in La bohème.
scottishopera.org.uk/what-s-on/202526-season/
Artist Updates
Lauren Fagan made her role debut as Tatyana Eugene Onegin at Canadian Opera, to rave reviews from the Canadian press and now heads to Sweden for her debut in the title role of Rusalka at Royal Swedish Opera, which she describes on Instagram as ‘childhood mermaid fantasy coming true’. She also makes her company debut with Scottish Opera next season as one of the soloists in a selection of scenes from Tchaikovsky’s operas.
A former Emerging Artist with Scottish Opera, Lea Shaw continues with them this season, making her role debut as Concepción L’heure espagnole. She makes her company debut with Welsh National Opera in Blaze of Glory and makes her debut at The Glasshouse in February as Sorceress Dido and Aeneas with Royal Northern Sinfonia, alongside Rowan Pierce. Lea has also just been signed by Rayfield Allied.
rayfieldallied.com/news/2025/new-signing-mezzo-soprano-lea-shaw
Felix Gygli has signed to Keynote Artist Management. His upcoming engagements include Elijah at Zürich Opera House and a return to Verbier Festival as Spinelloccio/ Notaio in Gianni Schicchi.
keynoteartistmanagement.com/artists/felix-gygli/
Hugo Brady joins the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Rising Star scheme, along with soprano Sofia Kirwan-Baez who will become a Samling Artist this summer. Hugo has a busy summer coming up. He gives a recital at LIFE Victoria Festival Barcelona; he plays The Novice in the premiere of a reworking by Oliver Leith of Billy Budd at the Féstival d’Aix-en-Provence (conducted by Finnegan Downie Dear) and he has been selected for the Atelier Lyrique at this year’s Verbier Festival.
Joining Hugo at Verbier will be Ellen Pearson and Annabel Kennedy. Annabel is also looking forward to no fewer than five role debuts in her next season at Deutsche Oper am Rhein, including her first Wagner productions when she sings Second Squire in Parsifal and Siegrune Die Walküre.
The legendary German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was born one hundred years ago, and as his last student and close friend, Benjamin Appl is playing a key role in events to mark this centenary. Along with James Baillieu, he has released an album reflecting Fischer-Dieskau’s legacy, which comes packaged with a book. Along with concerts and contributions to news articles, Benjamin has presented a programme on BBC Radio 3, which you can listen to here:
bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002cbts
English Touring Opera – Autumn Tour
ETO return to the North East for their autumn tour, with performances at Darlington Hippodrome. Natasha Page makes her company and role debut as Adina, L’elisir d’amore and Harry Grigg is part of the ensemble and Kieran Rayner is Tarquinius, The Rape of Lucretia.
englishtouringopera.org.uk/season/autumn-2025
Oxford Song
This year’s Oxford Song runs from 10–25 October, on the theme of ‘Stories in Song’ and as always, there are plenty of Samling Artists appearing, beginning with a residency by Benjamin Appl across the opening weekend.
Over the two weeks of the festival, you can also catch James Baillieu, Neil Balfour, Hugo Brady, Libby Burgess, Natalie Burch, Harriet Burns, Jâms Coleman, Rowan Hellier, Sebastian Hill, Bethan Langford, Francesca Lauri, Joshua Owen Mills, Ellen Pearson, Sid Ramchander, Ian Tindale, Kitty Whately and Jong Sun Woo.
Recordings
Benjamin Hulett is the tenor soloist in Elgar’s The Kingdom with London Mozart Players and Crouch End Festival Chorus conducted by David Temple.
signumrecords.com/product/elgar-the-kingdom
Samuel Boden is one of the soloists with Fretwork viols on an album commemorating the anniversary of Orlando Gibbons’s death, appearing on the title track ‘My Days’, a tribute to Gibbons by Nico Muhly.
