Trainees 2010/11

Sopranos
Susana Gaspar
Lucinda-Mirikata Deacon
Aoife O'Sullivan

Mezzo-sopranos
Maire Flavin
Justina Gringyte
Hanna Hipp

Tenors
Tyler Clarke
Nathan Vale
John Pierce

Baritones
Oliver Dunn
Duncan Rock

Bass
Jimmy Holliday
Ross McInroy

Repetiteurs
Sonia Ben-Santamaria
Julian Black
Elizabeth Rossiter

Heather Tomala repetiteur

Keyboard player Heather Tomala combines her passions for early music, opera and musical theatre with accompanying and coaching singers and instrumentalists and teaching music theory. During her Master’s degree at the Royal Academy of Music she won several prizes for solo and ensemble performance and received specialist continuo training. It was whilst here that she formed the period instrument Baroque ensemble Musica Viva, of which she is still Musical Director.

A popular répétiteur for Voicelab, Southbank Centre’s vocal initiative, Heather is also an Associate Trainee at the National Opera Studio for 2010/11. She has established a busy career as an audition and rehearsal pianist, choral accompanist and musical director for contemporary musical theatre. Workplaces include London conservatoires and West End shows, plus frequent vocal coaching for UK theatre productions.

Heather uses her abilities as a practitioner to encourage the performers of the future and has worked as an animateur on projects introducing schoolchildren to opera and helping them to compose. She is a member of the Musical Awareness teaching staff for the Guildhall School of Music & Drama Junior Department, where she also directs the Baroque Ensemble, Theory & Aural tutor for St. Paul’s School’s prestigious music department, and teaches keyboard skills and musicianship to singers at NOS.