Elizabeth Sillo, a member of the BBC National Chorus of Wales studied singing in the Franz Liszt Conservatoire, in Budapest. After obtaining her musical degree, she joined as a singer the Budapest National Opera and later the Szeged National Opera.
Thanks to the flourishing operatic tradition of Central-Europe, she has performed in several opera houses, including Aida, Nabucco and Tosca in Austria, Italy, France and Germany. As a devotee of the Austro-Hungarian operetta, she has sung in Lehar’s Merry Widow, in Emerich Kalman’s Csardas Queen and Countess Marica. In the UK she has participated in various oratorios with the Royal Academy of Music in London, and with the Keele Bach Choir in the North of England.
As a former member of the City of Manchester Opera, she performed with great success in the Buxton Fringe in 2014. She has been a member of the Saturday Voice Academy in Cardiff and has taken part in their productions.
Over the last 2 years she has sung in several concerts with the Welsh National Opera and the BBC National Chorus of Wales, including the BBC tour in Brittany and the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall in London.
She is a concert organiser as well. Last summer she organised Master Classes for singers with a French conductor, Vincent Monteil from the Strasbourg Opera and has been the co-organiser of the Welsh – Hungarian concert series. She was the main singer of the Bards of Wales ( Karl Jenkins) project supported by the University of South Wales last year and she has organised four Welsh – Hungarian concerts so far. The first two took place in Cardiff in the URDD Centre ( Wales Millennium Centre) and two other concerts were held in Hungary.
She is the International PR Manager of the Simandy Singing Competition and in December she is going to sing with Adam Diegel, American tenor from the New York Metropolitan.
Richard Parry
Welsh baritone Richard Parry is a remarkably versatile theatre performer and cultural campaigner. He studied singing privately with Mark Wildman, head of voice at the Royal Academy of Music and has gone on to perform in opera and song recital in UK and Europe with The English Bach Festival, Clonter Opera and Opera North and appear as abaritone recitalist at international music festivals. He has worked as an actor and writer inBritish theatre and television, winning Time Out, London and Edinburgh Fringe awards.Richard has made work as an artist in National Museum of Wales and National Eisteddfod of Wales and was commissioned by Newport City Council in 2017 to make new public art works in the city centre celebrating Newport Chartist contributions to world democracy. Richard has been a guest speaker at international academic conferences on culture and arts, including giving an address at Oxford University on the philosophy of religion, and has convened conference/seminars on culture, philosophy and participation at Cambridge University and Welsh Universities. In 2017 he led the three week walk from Yorkshire through Wales for the international environmental flagship movement The Eden Project, singing to communities in the landscape as he travelled and celebrating Wales and the importance of community participation for wellbeing and combatting the environmental challenges facing human culture. Richard is the founder and creative director of the Coleridge in Wales Festival, an 80 day celebration of the international importance of the Welsh cultural life in questions of culture, economy and sustainability. He lives in South Wales.
Dorothy Singh
Dorothy studied violin and piano performance at the RNCM, in Manchester.
After playing as a freelance violinist with BBC and other orchestras, Dorothy was awarded a British Council scholarship to specialise in chamber music and accompaniment at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. There she became an accompanist in the vocal faculty and at the International Kodaly Institute where she was the first UK student to be awarded the diploma. She gave regular recitals around Hungary and abroad with the Hungarian tenor, Boldizsar Keonch.
Settling in Wales she was appointed senior violin and piano tutor at the University of Trinity Saint David in Carmarthen. She is very active as a teacher and accompanist and founded the charitable Kodaly Violin school, in collaboration with the Welsh/ Hungarian society and specialists in Hungary, improving music education from the early years in schools and music centres.
Simmy Singh
Simmy Singh is a classical and crossover violinist based in the UK who leads a varied and busy freelance career. She was lucky to receive a first-rate classical upbringing at Chetham's School of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music and now prides herself on being a versatile and open minded musician. Simmy believes wholeheartedly in learning from and trying to immerse herself in as many different cultures and experiences as possible and in finding a way to incorporate these influences into her musical endeavours.
