Lucy Crowe has established herself as one of the leading lyric sopranos of her generation. Described as having a voice of bell-like clarity with an impeccable vocal technique and powerful stage presence she has performed and recorded with many of the world’s greatest conductors. These include Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Emannuelle Haïm, Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Roger Norrington, Edward Gardner, Andris Nelsons, Trevor Pinnock, Mark Minkowski and Harry Bicket. She made her Salzburg Festival debut under Ingo Metzmacher. She has given recitals throughout the UK including London’s Wigmore Hall and the 2013/14 season sees her recital debut at Carnegie Hall.

Her operatic roles include Servilia (La Clemenza di Tito) for the Metropolitan Opera, New York; Belinda (Dido and Aeneas) and Gilda (Rigoletto) for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier) for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich and Covent Garden; Poppea (Agrippina) and Drusilla (The Coronation of Poppea) for English National Opera; Dorinda (Orlando) in Lille, Paris and for the Opera de Dijon and The Fairy Queenand the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen for Glyndebourne Festival Opera. She made her US Opera debut as Iole in Handel’s Hercules for the Chicago Lyric Opera.

Future engagements include concerts with Iván Fischer in Berlin, a European tour with Haïm, Rome with Pappano, Munich with Gardiner, the London Symphony Orchestra under Elder, and the Philharmonia Orchestra with Salonen. Future operatic engagements include Iole in Toronto; Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Adina (l’Elisir d’Amore) for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Anna Tilbrook

Anna Tilbrook is one of Britain’s most exciting pianists, with a considerable reputation in song recitals and chamber music. She made her debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1999 and has since become a regular performer at Europe’s major concert halls and festivals, as well as coaching regularly for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden.

Anna has collaborated with many leading singers and instrumentalists including James Gilchrist, Lucy Crowe, Sarah Tynan, Emma Bell, Willard White, Mark Padmore, Stephan Loges, Chris Maltman, Ian Bostridge, Barbara Bonney, Victoria Simmonds, Christine Rice, Iestyn Davies, Natalie Clein, Nick Daniel, Adrian Brendel and Jack Liebeck. For Welsh National Opera she has accompanied Angela Gheorghiu, Jose Carreras and Bryn Terfel in televised concerts.

With the distinguished British tenor James Gilchrist she has made acclaimed recordings of 20th-century English song for Linn records, including Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge (a finalist in the Gramophone Awards 2008), the cycles for tenor and piano by Gerald Finzi and most recently, songs by Britten and Leighton. For Chandos, James and Anna recorded a disc of Songs by Lennox Berkeley. In 2009 they embarked on a series of recordings for Orchid records of the Schubert Song Cycles and their disc of Die Schone Mullerin received great critical acclaim and was Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, November 2009. Schubert’s Schwanengesang along with Beethoven’s An die Ferne Geliebte was released early in 2011 and their recording of Winterreise was Record of the week in The Independent and was made recording of the month in the 2011 Christmas issue of BBC Music Magazine – “It is a profoundly considered reading, considered enough for some of the songs to be as penetrating as in almost any performance I have heard.” (Michael Tanner).

Born in Hertfordshire, Anna studied music at York University and at the Royal Academy of Music with Julius Drake, where she was awarded a Fellowship and in 2009 became an Associate. She also won many major international accompaniment prizes including the AESS Bluthner prize and the award for an outstanding woman musician from the ROSL. She now lives in London.