Trainees 2010/11

Sopranos
Lucinda-Mirikata Deacon
Susana Gaspar
Aoife O'Sullivan

Mezzo-sopranos
Maire Flavin
Justina Gringyte
Hanna Hipp

Tenors
Tyler Clarke
Nathan Vale

Baritones
Oliver Dunn
Duncan Rock

Bass
Ross McInroy

Repetiteurs
Sonia Ben-Santamaria
Julian Black
Paul Wingfield

Jimmy Holliday Bass

Jimmy Holliday graduated from the Royal College of Music's International Opera School in July as the Martin Harris scholar supported by a Douglas & Kyra Downie Award. He was also supported by a Toeman Weinberger Opera Scholarship and won the RCM’s McCulloch Prize for Opera. Last year he was awarded the inaugural Richard Van Allan Award administered by the Musician’s Benevolent Fund, and won the Hampshire Singer of the Year competition, the 10th anniversary of the competition.

Jimmy is a regular oratorio performer with recent highlights including Monteverdi 1610 Vespers, J.S. Bach St John and St Matthew Passion, Handel's Messiah, Haydn's Creation, Brahms's Requiem with David Hill, The Bach Choir and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Mahler Symphony No 8 at The Sage, Gateshead, Walford-Davies' The Pied Piper with Tenebrae at The Gregynog Festival, Stravinsky's Threni and The Flood with the CBSO in Symphony Hall, Birmingham. 

Jimmy won the RCM's Lieder competition in 2007 and regularly gives recitals around the U.K, most recently at The Winchester Festival in July. At the RCM he participated in master-classes with Sarah Walker, Roger Vignoles, Graham Johnson, Peter Harvey, Philip Langridge and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

Jimmy's first operatic role was Father Truelove in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress at The Dartington International Summer School. Since then roles include Caronte in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo for the Suffolk Villages Festival, Noye in Britten's Noye's Fludde at Romsey Abbey, Polyphemus in Handel's Acis & Galatea for Woodhouse Opera and Sleep in Purcell's Fairy Queen with The English Consort. Last February he sang the role of The Judge in The Jailor's Tale, a new opera by Malcolm Singer commissioned by Finchley Children's Music Group for their 50th anniversary. At the RCM Jimmy performed the roles of Dr Bartolo in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Badger/Parson in Janacek's Cunning little Vixen, Bottom in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Sarastro in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte and Kecal in Smetena's The Bartered Bride. He is taught by Graeme Broadbent (RCM professor and former house principal at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden).

Jimmy's NOS studies are kindly supported by British American Tobacco and Friends of Covent Garden.