HELEN BRUCE
CARMEN
Helen Bruce was born in Durham. In July
2013, Helen graduated from the Royal
Welsh College of Music and Drama
where she studied with Leah MarianJones, having received Leverhulme
scholarship to attend the MA Opera
course. She previously studied at the
Guildhall School of Music and Drama
on the Mmus postgraduate vocal studies
course and at the University of
Edinburgh. At Edinburgh she won
the Donald Francis Tovey award for
performance, the Eileen Cameron Music
award for outstanding contribution to the
musical life of Edinburgh as well as the
Bucher-Fraser scholarship for postgraduate study. She has been asked to sing
for the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus
and has performed as a guest soloist for
Sunderland football club at the Stadium
of Light. In the last year she has performed the role of Marcellina Le Nozze
di Figaro (RWCMD, Wales Millennium
Centre), Mercedes Carmen (St Magnus
Festival), Cherubino the Marriage of
Figaro (Winterbourne Opera), street
chorus/soloist in Bernstein’s Mass for
the 2012 Proms, the role of Mrs Chin/
Old Crone Night at the Chinese Opera for
British Youth Opera, Lucretia The Rape
of Lucretia (RWCMD, directed by Donald
Maxwell), Madame Popova The Bear
(RWCMD, La Mortella in Ischia) and
chorus for Garsington Opera. She has
most recently been asked to sing in the
extra chorus for Welsh National Opera
and Opera North.
www.helenbrucemezzo.com
ANDREAS BACKLUND
JAN CAPINSKI
Andreas Backlund is a 27 year old
tenor from Sweden. He started his
musical journey as a classical
guitarist, earning a bachelors
degree in classical guitar from the
Norwegian Academy of Music. At
the same time as he was doing
his guitar studies, he also studied
voice privately with several teachers. The most important teacher
for him was Matthew Mark Marriot,
with whom he settled in to the
tenor repertoire from have been
singing as a baritone. After his
studies in Oslo he was accepted
to the Alexander Gibson Opera
School at the Royal Conservatoire
of Scotland where he is now
studying on his first year of two
with Stephen Robertson as his
voice teacher. He has recently been
performing the role of Lysander in
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by
Britten, which was a co-production
between RCS and Scottish Opera.
He has also been involved in opera
scenes where he have done roles
such as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Liberto in L´incoronazione
di Poppea and Spalanzani in
Les Contes d’Hoffmann. He also
has experience as a professional
opera-chorister, as well as being
a soloist with choir and performed
lieder recitals.
Jan was born in Kraków, Poland,
where he began his vocal studies before moving to Cardiff in
2009. He has just graduated with
distinction from the RWCMD MA
Opera course.
He has performed main
operatic roles with the Academy
of Music in Kraków, RWCMD,
Opera’r Ddraig, Scottish Opera
(as an understudy) and taken
part in prominent youth opera
programmes: British Youth
Opera and Banff Festival Opera
in Canada (as a cover for both).
Jan has sung as a soloist at the
BBC Proms (Blues Singer in
Bernstein’s ‘MASS’). He also
enjoys performing contemporary
opera and has performed at the
Tête à Tête Opera Festival. 2013
highlights include performing for
HRH The Prince of Wales at the
RWCMD, performing Tarquinius
in Britten’s ‘The Rape of Lucretia’
(RWCMD), Smirnov in Walton’s
‘The Bear’ at the composer’s
home in Ischia and covering
Father in Garsington Opera’s
‘Hänsel und Gretel’.
For more information please visit:
DON JOSÉ
ESCAMILLO
www.capinski.com