As a soloist and member of the National Chamber Choir (1998-2003), she toured internationally, recorded and broadcasted on television and radio. During this time Sylvia also had the opportunity to work with international conductors and ensembles and perform a variety of musical styles from Gregorian to contemporary.

A regular recitalist around the UK and Europe, Sylvia's repetoire this year includes programs of French song, Spanish (with guitar), Lieder and a tour of Shostakovich Seven Romances Op.127 with the Clara Schumann Trio. She has sung a wealth of the oratorio repetoire with the major choral societies and orchestras in the country. She is in great demand in the contemporary field due to her vocal skill and musicianship. Sylvia has added to her operatic roles in the last year as Jenufa (Jenufa/Janacek), Aspasia (Mitridate/Mozart), Governess (The Turn of the Screw/Britten, Gabriel (Petra von Kant/Barry) premiere, Neither/Feldman and future engagements include Despina in Cosi fan tutte, Konstanze in Die Entfuhrung/Mozart and Grafin in Der Wiener Bluthe/J.Strauss.

Born in 1977, Serge OLLIVE begins his musical studies in 1995 at the National Conservatory of Marseille (France) where he studies organ in the classes of prof. Annick CHEVALIER-NADDEO (organ) and André ROSSI (improvisation). In 1998 and 1999, he gets Master degrees in musical theory, harmony and Counterpoint. In 2000, he obtains Master degrees in organ and improvisation. Then he perfects himself in the same conservatory and goes also in Lyon where he can follow courses of prof. Louis ROBILLIARD and prof. Jean BOYER. From 1997 to 2007, he was organist at the Cathedral of Gap (France). He made several concerts performances on this organ and is nowadays still regularly invited in the Gap's organ festival. Since 1998, he's invited to play in many festivals as soloist and also with choirs or orchestras. Today, he played more than 300 concerts in the whole France (Marseille, Sisteron, Valence, Montélimar, Grignan, Narbonne, Paris, Boulogne-sur-mer, St Omer, Lyon...) and also in Germany, Switzerland, England and Italy.

Attracted by orchestral music of the 19th and 20th centuries, Serge OLLIVE begins to study conducting with Jenö REHAK in 2000. In 2002, he's invited to conduct the Alpes-Provence Youth Orchestra in Gap (France). The commitee appoint him Musical Director the next year, in 2003. Chief conductor of this orchestra during 4 years, he has conducted large part of repertoire : Mahler : 1st, 4th, 9th symphonies, Kindertotenlieder; Liszt : Eine Faust-sinfonie, Les Préludes; Tchaikovsky : 5th symhpony; Brahms : 4th symphony; Ravel : Daphnis and Chloe; Puccini : La Bohème; Beethoven : 3rd symphony; and many others such as Mozart, Reger, Wagner, Grieg. Serge OLLIVE conducted his last concert with the Alpes-Provence Youth Orchestra in may 2007 with Verdi Requiem. In the same time he studies with Arie VAN BEEK in Clermont-Ferrand and improves in master-classes with Uros LAJOVIC (University of music and visual arts - Vienna). He conducted at this opportunity the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie of Konstanz (Germany) in Brahms 4th symphony. In 2006 and 2007, Serge OLLIVE teached conducting at the free-time University in Gap and also in private courses.

In 1989 Ms. Ouspenskaya was accepted to the St. Petersburg Conservatory where she earned her Masters degree. In 1991 she made her first trip to the United States, winning Second Prize in the Bach International Piano Competition in Washington, DC. Since that year Anna was coming to US every year to perform and give master classes which took her to 18 states. In 1993 Ms. Ouspenskaya was a finalist at the Bach International Piano Competition in Germany. She made her first CD in 1995 with Altarus records, and her second is on its way on Ramsey records due for release this summer. Both CDs represent Russian music: the 1st of Rodion Shchedrin and the 2nd of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.

From 1996 to 1998 Anna Ouspenskaya lived and worked in Luxembourg at Dudelange Conservatory, also giving performances in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Scotland.

Todd Oxford was invited to join the Harvey Pittel Saxophone Quartet in 1988 and performed some 600 engagements with the group through the 2001 season. The Quartet presented concerts in affiliation with Columbia Artists Management, Midwest Arts Alliance, and the Texas Commission on the Arts in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington D.C., Honolulu, Sacramento, CA, Rochester, MN, and Dallas, TX. In addition, the group performed on hundreds of university/college campuses, radio/television programs, orchestral pops series, and as featured artists with wind ensembles.

Mr. Oxford has received many performance awards to include the Dallas Concerto Competition First Prize, Best Instrumental Collaborator (Sidney Wright Award), the University of Texas Concerto Competition, and was recently a finalist in both the Coleman Chamber Music Competition and the Roy Crane Award for Excellence in Music. He has been involved in numerous world premiers and collaborations with prominent composers and performers such as Gunther Schuller, Karel Husa, Warren Benson, David Maslanka, Michael Daugherty, Michael Colgrass, Donald Grantham, Dan Welcher, Warren Barker, Oliver Knussen, Daron Aric Hagen, Shulamit Ran, Robert Xavier Rodriguez, David Holsinger, Allen Vizutti, Jeff Tyzik, Julie Budd, Kenny Rogers, the Manhattan Transfer, and the 5th Dimension. Mr. Oxford may be heard as a featured artist on a number of recordings available on the Mark Records label by ensembles such as The Harvey Pittel Saxophone Quartet, the TEX-SAX Saxophone Ensemble, the United States Air Force Band of the West, and the University of Texas Wind Ensemble. His solo CD, Finesse, is available on the Equilibrium label and is distributed nationally by Albany Records. He most recently worked as a recording artist with the Barbwire New Music Project - StephenBarber.com.

Michał won the first prize at the Hilarión Eslava competition, second prize at the international cello competition in Arquillos (Spain), obtained the Merit Diploma at the Torneo Internazionale di Musica and was Highly Commended at the RCM cello competition.

ABOUT RUCHIRA Ruchira, an outstanding vocalist groomed in the Kotali gharana has earned an enviable distinction amongst the younger musicians in the realm of Hindustani Classical Music. The competent upholder of this rich heritage was born in 1975 in high traditional family of educationalists, arts and music. She had the privilege of being initiated to this parampara and went under the protégée of the great maestro musician Pandit Manas Chakraborty, her one and only Guru. The master mind of her guru noted the quality of her gifted and rare voice and creative capabilities. Being a perfectionist and trend setter his strict and vigilant guidance moulded her musical genius into a unique blend of highest order. Her gayaki speaks out for her keen interest in aesthetics, spiritual awareness and serenity which is seldom found in modern days. She carefully keeps up with the purity and nuances of the Kotali gharana aligning with the multifarious gayaki of her Guru and his predecessors. The flawless manner in which she brings out the texture of the ragas and taans shows that a rigorous training, hard, and sincere labour has gone into her making as a vocalist and culminated her craftsmanship to what it is- perfect and finished to every detail. Her cognition and remarkable ability to execute intricate combinations of notes in rare ragas, specially her delineation of innovative sargams and taans confirm her eagerness to reach out to wider and wider dimensions. Her voice, the crest of a class can execute a total feast of melody and classicism in khayal, thumri and other semi classical forms. Her music is not only perfect craftsmanship but a rare blend of immaculate precision and emotive imagination, which takes the listeners into a peaceful journey through the unseen and unheard marvels of a new world. She craves for perfection and attains it with ease, the more she attains bigger becomes her reach, richer she becomes newer becomes her dimension. To her, Music is not only an art to perform but a love to live with - it’s a voyage towards eternity that can only be realized by feeling one and the same with Music.

HERITAGE The Chakraborty family of Kotalipara, Faridpur, of the then East-Bengal, is believed to have been drawn towards Indian Classical Music long time ago. One of the ancestors of the family is known to have received training from Seni Gharana and brought the trend. Tarapada Chakraborty’s father Late Pandit Kulachandra Chakraborty and his uncle Late Pandit Ramchandra Chakraborty had their training from Ustad Jahur Khan of Khurja Gharana. Ramchandra had the honour of being the Dwarpandit (court scholar) and the distinguished musician of the Maharaja of Natore. Thus, both the brothers had a wide contact with many leading musicians of their time and had a phenomenal collection of musical wealth. Having moved to Calcutta with this rich inheritance, Tarapada Chakraborty first took lessons from Late Pandit Satkari Malakar especially in Khayal and Tappa. Later, under the guidance of the Great Maestro Late Sangeetacharya Girijashankar Chakraborty, he acquired the distinguishing features of various Ragas, styles and traditional Dhrupad, Dhamar and Khayal bandishes of different gharanas mainly, Seni, Betia, Delhi, Gwalior, Rampur, Agra, Rangila, Jaipur and Kirana. Girijashankar being a pioneer of Thumri style of singing at that time gave Tarapada Chakraborty an intensive training on the Thumri style of Kirana and Beneras gharana as well. In fact, it is quite discerningly evident that Khayal received a rare authenticity and completeness in the heralding voice of Sangeetacharya Tarapada Chakraborty in his own way. Sangeetacharya Tarapada Chakraborty, the pioneer of this Kotali Gayaki is the legend adored all over India for his contribution towards Hindustani Classical Music. His worthy son Pandit Manas Chakraborty, now the reigning Khalifa of Kotali Gharana is the devout pursuer of various sources and streams of Indian Classical Music. Enriched by his keen interest in Indian Philosophical tradition of all the existing gharanas and having been exposed to the corresponding confluences in his family’s assertively partisan art of music focused his attention on the necessity of discarding in order to select and the necessity of differentiating in order to unite. The Maestro has boldly made the manifold moves of his style to manifest an integrated oneness of the eternal Indian ethos and by now, has initiated a new dynamics of allegiance to the human efforts towards life and its values. Thus, presenting the obscure reality of music in a tangibly graceful, elocutionary form with his undaunted kalabant gayaki, nayaki and majestic mijaaz has made him an ‘institution by himself’ in the international realm of Hindustani Shastriya Sangeet. His contribution in Indian Classical Music for the last fifty years is undoubtedly worth-mentioning and as a Guru he is great. The schooling of Indian Classical Music through the mentors of his family and the torchbearers established around the globe has already entered the seventh generation. Practically, Pt. Manas Chakraborty is the new trend-setter of this Kotali-gayaki. His co-efficiency has earned a unique style which although endures many diversities with that of his father’s proclamatory approach, but at the same time very convergent at the philosophical end and its manifestation reveals the ultimate shape of ‘Kotali Gayaki’.

After a brilliant debut recital at the age of 20, Alexander Panizza has been performing internationally regularly. Among his engagements as a soloist, Brahms Second Piano Concerto with the National Symphony and Brahms First Piano Concerto with the Montevideo Philharmonic in Uruguay stand out. Based in London as of 1999, Alexander completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Performance at the Royal College of Music, where he was awarded the Esther Fisher Prize, Frank Heneghan Prize, Cyril Smith Prize, Hopkinson Gold Medal and Shimmin Prize.

His performance of Ginastera's First Piano Concerto with the LSSO at the Barbican Hall in January 2001 was received with highly positive reviews in The Times and The Independent. Last September, Alexander Panizza was invited to fill in for Martha Argerich at the Teatro Argentino de La Plata, performing Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with great success.

Mr. Parashkevov has been awarded a number of prizes from various Bulgarian competitions. These include: Second Prize in ”Best Performance of Bulgarian Music” – Varna 1993, First Prize in the National Competition “Svertoslav Obretenov” – Provadia 1994, Special Prize in a competition for the “Best Performance of Czech and Slovak Music” – Varna 1995, First Prize in “Young Talents Competition” – Sofia, and prize for a Bach performance in 1996.

Mr. Parashkevov’s diverse career has included numerous appearances with different orchestras. He has soloed with the Varna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Festival Chamber Orchestra in Varna, as well as the Schumen Philharmonic Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra of Music School “L. Pipkov” in Sofia, Bulgaria. Throughout the years, Chavdar Parashkevov has studied with many renowned violinists, including Peter Hristoskov, Ginka Gichkova, Eduard Schmieder, Veronica Bogaertz, Thomas Hapanen, Takashi Shimizu and Nelli Shkolnikova.

She made her London debut at Westminster Cathedral at the age of twenty, and two years later made her first solo appearance at the BBC Promenade Concerts in the Royal Albert Hall. She has since performed in concert halls throughout the world. She has recorded a wide range of solo repertoire for RCA, Classics for Pleasure, L'Oiseau Lyre, EMI, ASV, Collins Classics and Motette. In addition, she has collaborated with the renowned Maurice André in a duo recording of music for trumpet and organ. She has performed numerous times on radio and television with special feature programmes on both German and Swiss television. She appears frequently at international festivals and is often invited to be a jury member for organ competitions.

Highlights in her concert career have been performances in such major festivals as the City of London, Bath and Three Choirs Festivals in England, with appearances in the International Celebrity Recital Series at Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral and St. Paul's Cathedral in London; abroad she has played in the Internationale Orgelwoche Nürnberg in Germany, the Jyväskylä Arts Festival in Finland, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Festival Paris Quartier d'Été in France, the Festival L'Europe & L'Orgue Maastricht in Holland, Festival Internationale di Musica Organistica Magadino in Switzerland, the Athens Organ Festival in Greece. She also gave four solo concerts as a guest recitalist at the American Guild of Organists National Centennial Convention in New York and two concerts at the American Guild of Organists National Convention in Philadelphia.

In August Rachel will be the soprano soloist of choice for the premier of a major new work entitled "Namarie", taking place in Austria. Rachel can be heard on the original recording of June Boyce-Tilman's composition "Hildegard Revisited", and has recently recorded a selection of Sacred arias in conjunction with Archangel Recordings, which was premiered in April 2006 on Brunel 200 fm. Rachel has also sung on live radio, by listener request, and has received favourable reviews for her confident and moving performance.

Prizes won include the Churchill Music Prize 1999, Friends of the Playhouse Stage and Film Award and the Kingswood Vocal Prize.

- Recitals and Competitions - Mario Parrella did give many Recitals for the most important Musical Associations in Italy and abroad. Winner of many International Piano Competitions in 1995 started to study Conducting, and made his debut with the Jupiter Ensemble in 1999 giving recitals dedicated to A. Corelli, G.F.Haendel and J. S. Bach. Actually Mario Parrella is the Musical and Artistic Principal of the "Coro Lirico Bresciano".

As well as having recorded more traditional Ukrainian music and original songs about Ukraine in Ukrainian and English since leaving The Ukrainians, Stepan Pasicznyk also works as a session musician, having recorded on projects produced by Justin Sullivan of New Model Army, Phil Manzanera, guitarist of Roxy Music, and "Swill" Odgers of British Punk/Folk Group The Men They Couldn't Hang 's latest release "Elvis Lives Here" with his "Swagger Band". He sessioned on the last release by Ukrainian American duet Darka and Slavko before they parted company.

An exciting young Scottish duo with flamenco flair, Yvonne and Andrew are both 1st Class Honours graduates and have been playing together since they were at school! The Duo is renowned for their arrangements and versality between various styles. Their extensive repertoire spans many genres including classical, easy listening, and Latin-American. Both performers are highly accomplished, award winning soloists as well as excellent chamber and orchestral musicians.

Check out www.yvonne-flute.webeden.co.uk for more info.

In recent operatic performances she has been seen as Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro) for St John’s Opera Company, Josephine (HMS Pinafore) for St Helens Gilbert & Sullivan Society and as Norina (Don Pasquale), Constance (Dialogue des Carmelites), Oberto (Alcina), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Oscar (Un Ballo in Maschera) and Lucia (The Rape of Lucretia) in the RNCM Opera Excerpts. She also took part in The Lover’s Recantation by Thomas Arne as part of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and was part of the chorus for Stravinsky’s Rake's Progress at RNCM.

Recent guest artist appearances include; Names of the Dead for Opera North; Macclesfield Male Voice Choir, Rhos Orpheus Male Choir, the RNCM Baroque Ensemble and the RNCM Wind Orchestra at the Bridgewater Hall. Works she has performed as an oratorio soloist include: Bach’s St John Passion for Leicester Bach Choir; Poulenc’s Gloria & Rutter’s Requiem; Haydn’s Creation, Jenkins The Armed Man, Tippett’s 5 Negro Spirituals from A child of our Time at the Bridgewater Hall for the Hallé Choir, Handel’s Messiah, Rutter’s Magnificat, Mozart’s Requiem and Haydn’s Nelson Mass.