Live Uprising Fri 28 – Sat 29 March

Ellie Slorach is the RSNO’s Engagement Conductor.

Alongside her work at the RSNO, Ellie is the Founder and Artistic Director of Kantos Chamber Choir and works across the UK and internationally with orchestras and choirs.

In the 2023-24 season, Ellie makes her debut with the Royal Northern Sinfonia at Sage Gateshead and with New Adventures’ production of Edward Scissorhands at Sadler’s Wells. She returns to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Singers, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestra of Opera North and Manchester Camerata.

Specialising in concerts for schools and young people, Ellie has worked with orchestras including The Hallé and the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, where she was the Assistant Conductor to Gergely Madaras in 2021-22. She is often invited to work with youth and student orchestras and choirs, including having been Musical Director of the Hallé Youth Orchestra. 

Ellie regularly works on opera productions; she conducted Northern Opera Group’s production of Handel’s ‘Silla’ in 2022 and returns as Musical Director for their headline production of ‘Sherlock’ in 2024 at the Leeds Opera Festival. She was co-Musical Director for the Royal Opera House’s production of Lost & Found at St Pancras International station in 2022 and was the Assistant Conductor for Opera Holland Park’s Rigoletto in June 2023.

In 2015, Ellie founded Kantos Chamber Choir; this trailblazing vocal ensemble is at the cutting edge of choral singing in the UK. Kantos performs unique and innovative concerts, devised by Ellie, to sell-out audiences, in venues ranging from nightclubs to concert halls. The choir regularly perform and record with orchestras including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic, on labels including Decca Classics.

Ellie studied Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music having previously studied Music at the University of Manchester. 

London based Welsh Soprano Ffion Edwards was a Young Artist with the National Opera Studio 21/22. She is a Master of Performance graduate at the Royal College of Music, and is an alumna of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Ffion recently played the role of Cunegonde in Bernstein’s Candide and covered Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Bronwen in Hackbridge Johnson’s Blaze of Glory! with the Welsh National Opera. Ffion has also recently played the role of Gianetta in Donizetti’s L’Elisir D’Amore at Glyndebourne.

Ffion made debuts at Glyndebourne Festival Opera giving two performances of Oberto in Handel’s Alcina, Glyndebourne Touring Opera as First Bridesmaid and cover Barbarina in Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro, Opéra National de Lorraine in the role of Kristin in Julie by Belgian composer Boesmans, English National Opera in the role of Frantik and Jay in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen.

Other operatic performances include Ffion covering the roles of Oriana Amadigi with English Touring Opera and Zerlina Don Giovanni with Nevill Holt Opera. Earlier performances include Clarice Il Mondo Della Luna, 1st Trio Member Trouble in Tahiti, Zerbinetta Ariadne auf Naxos, Elisa Il Re Pastore at the Royal College of Music. She has also performed a number of times with Welsh National Youth Opera in small roles and as a chorus member. In 2019, Ffion sang in the Chorus in a Royal Opera House production of Tosca with Sir Bryn Terfel, Vittorio Grigolo and Kristine Opolais in the Abu Dhabi Festival.

As a soloist, Ffion has worked with ENO Orchestra, WNO Orchestra, performed Bach Ascension Oratorio (RCM), Bach B Minor Mass (Tilford Bach Festival), Messiah (Bristol Cathedral), Eternal Light (Gloucester Cathedral) and debuted at the Royal Albert Hall. Ffion was the winner of the Handel Prize in The Maureen Lehane Virtual Vocal Awards 2021. She has also given private recitals accompanied by maestro Carlo Rizzi and performed for HRH King Charles at his home in Wales.

Ffion is grateful to have been supported by The Carne Trust, Help Musicians UK, and The Countess of Munster Musical Trust.

See Ffion Edwards perform alongside the RSNO in Jonathan Dove’s Uprising on 28 & 29 March 2025.

Award winning Colombian soprano Julieth Lozano Rolong wowed audiences worldwide scooping the coveted Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Audience Prize at the 2023 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition and was recently named as one of Opera Wire’s 2023 Top Ten Rising Stars.

This season, Julieth returned to Welsh National Opera to revisit the role of Nuria in Ainadamar. She made her debut with the company at the delayed Dubai Expo 2020 in the new production of Al Wasl as Zayed/Young Mary under the direction of Sir David Pountney and baton of Justin Brown. Also, this season, she will make her English National Opera debut as Jano in Jenufa.

Julieth’s 2022/23 season commenced in her native Colombia as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro at Teatro Mayor under the baton of Martin Haselböck. Following this, Julieth returned to the UK to make her debut at Scottish Opera in a new production of Ainadamar as Nuria under the baton of Stuart Stratford, before spending the rest of the season at Grand Théâtre Genève as part of their Jeune ensemble. Roles there will include Blumenmädchen in Parsifal, Melanto in Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, La Doctoresse in Voyage vers l’espoir and Aksinia in Lady Macbeth of Mtsenk.

Previous engagements include Vixen (The Cunning Little Vixen) for Longborough Festival Opera, Zerlina (Don Giovanni) at the Verbier Festival, Tytania (Midsummer Night’s Dream) for Opera al Parque, Colombia, Despina (Cosi Fan Tutte) at the International Music Festival at Cartagena, Colombia, Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) at RCM and Norina (Don Pasquale) for Random Opera.

A 2020 Kathleen Ferrier competition finalist, and 2018 recipient of the President’s award given by The Prince of Wales, Julieth appeared in the BBC documentary Queen Victoria: My Musical Britain recorded in 2019 at Buckingham and Kensington palaces. In 2016 she participated in Georg Solti’s Academy and Verbier Festival’s Project Opera, where she was awarded the Prix Thierry Mermod. She has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, V&A Museum and many other venues around the globe.

Julieth graduated with a Masters in Vocal Performance and an Artist Diploma in Opera from the Royal College of Music, under the tutelage of Dinah Harris. An Irene Hanson and Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells scholar, Julieth was a 2019/20 Young Artist at the National Opera Studio in London.

See Julieth Lozano Rolong perform alongside the RSNO in Jonathan Dove’s Uprising on 28 & 29 March 2025.

Mezzo soprano Madeleine Shaw is a former member of the Young Singer’s Programme at English National Opera and she continues to enjoy great success on the opera and concert stages. It was in the role of the Beggar Woman in Deborah Warner’s acclaimed production of Death in Venice that Madeleine made her debut at English National Opera, Madeleine went on to reprise this role at La Monnaie, Brussels; Dutch National Opera and La Scala, Milan.

This season, Madeleine Shaw makes her debut at the Staatsoper Hamburg as Aksinya Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; she returns to Welsh National Opera as Annina Der Rosenkavalier; English National Opera as Rita The Handmaid’s Tale and the Longborough Festival as Fricka Das Ring des Nibelungen. She will make her debut with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra as the Aufseherin in concert performances of Elektraconducted by Kirill Petrenko in Bergen and Stockholm.

In the 2022/23 Season, Madeleine returned to English National Opera as Fricka Das Rheingold directed by Richard Jones; to Glyndebourne for her role debut as Marcellina Le nozze di Figaro and to Welsh National Opera as the Old Lady in a new production of Candide. Madeleine returned to the BBC Proms in 2022 as the Sorceress Dido and Aeneas with La Nuova Musica, and she has recently appeared with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Recent operatic appearances include her debut at the Opéra national de Paris as Aufseherin Elektra conducted by Semyon Bychkov; she returned to ENO as Rita The Handmaid’s Tale and at Welsh National Opera she created title role of Elena Langer’s Rhondda Rips It Up! and appeared as Annina Der Rosenkavalier; elsewhere she has appeared as The Forrester’s Wife The Cunning Little Vixen and Roßweise Die Walküre for the Royal Opera and as Maddalena Rigoletto for Glyndebourne and ENO.

See Madeleine Shaw perform alongside the RSNO in Jonathan Dove’s Uprising on 28 & 29 March 2025.

Marcus Farnsworth is a past first prize-winner of the Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition and has performed many times at Wigmore Hall. He has also appeared in recital at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and La Monnaie, Brussels with Julius Drake; on a UK tour of Schubert Winterreise with James Baillieu; for Leeds Lieder with Graham Johnson; at Snape Maltings with Malcolm Martineau and the Fundacion Juan March Madrid with Sholto Kynoch.

His regular appearances for English National Opera feature Guglielmo Così fan tutte, Bill Bobstay in HMS Pinafore, Strephon Iolanthe, and Noye Noye’s Fludde in a collaboration with Theatre Royal Stratford East.

Current and recent highlights include Uprising a new opera by Jonathan Dove performed at Saffron Hall and with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; The Traveller in Britten’s Curlew River at the Aldeburgh Festival staged by Deborah Warner and his Canticles in concert with Julius Drake and Dame Harriet Walter for Temple Music; his debut at Garsington Opera singing Harlequin in Ariadne auf Naxos; orchestrated Schubert songs with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra; appearances at the Three Choirs Festival and European tours of Purcell King Arthur with the Gabrieli Consort and The Fairy Queen with Vox Luminis.

He has also sung Candide with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop; Maxwell Davies Eight Songs for a Mad King at the BBC Proms with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group conducted by Sian Edwards; HK Gruber’s Frankenstein!! with the Aurora Orchestra and Nicholas Collon in Cologne and roles in Kurt Weill Street Scene at Teatro Real Madrid.

Other previous operatic roles have included Eddy in Turnage Greek for Boston Lyric Opera; Sid in Britten’s Albert Herring with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Ned Keene Peter Grimes at the Edinburgh International Festival with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner.

As well as many new works, including Colin Matthews The Great Journey; Turnage The Silver Tassie; Cheryl Hoad’s Last Man Standing and Hubbard in John Adams’ Doctor Atomic conducted by the composer with the BBC SO, Marcus’s expansive concert repertoire includes Britten War Requiem; Elgar The Apostles; Orff Carmina Burana; Berlioz L’enfance du Christ and the Brahms and Fauré Requiem with conductors including François-Xavier Roth, Paul McCreesh and Bernard Labadie.

He has also sung Bach St Matthew Passion and St John Passion (Christus and Arias) with many symphony and period orchestras, most recently with Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and the Gabrieli Consort.

Marcus is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Southwell Music Festival.

See Marcus Farnsworth perform alongside the RSNO in Jonathan Dove’s Uprising on 28 & 29 March 2025.

British Bass Edwin Kaye’s current and future engagements include MAYOR/QUERCUS in the world premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Uprising Glyndebourne and Royal Scottish National Orchestra, CEPRANO/cover SPRAFUCILE Rigoletto English National Opera, 2. SOLDAT/5. JUDE Salome Opera di Roma, ANGELOTTI Tosca Opera Holland Park, SURIN Pique Dame Grange Festival Opera, FLEMISH DEPUTY Don Carlo Grand Théâtre de Genève, cover COLLINE La bohème Welsh National Opera, and cover COMMENDATORE Don Giovanni Scottish Opera. Edwin held positions at State Opera Ruse and State Opera Stara Zagora in Bulgaria.

See Edwin Kaye perform alongside the RSNO in Jonathan Dove’s Uprising on 28 & 29 March 2025.

Founded in 1978 by Jean Kidd, the RSNO Youth Chorus (formerly known as the RSNO Junior Chorus) is one of the leading children and youth choirs in the UK, with over 400 members aged seven to eighteen. It has built up a considerable reputation singing under some of the world’s most distinguished conductors and appearing on radio and television.

The RSNO Chorus performs in around six different programmes in up to twenty concerts across Scotland with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra each year. The RSNO Chorus has also had great success in recording with the Orchestra. Its recordings, amongst others, of Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, conducted by Neeme Jӓrvi, and Holst’s The Planets, conducted by David Lloyd-Jones, have both attracted high critical acclaim.

In addition to its commitment to the Orchestra, the RSNO Chorus performs independently and has been invited to perform with orchestras in many parts of the world, establishing an international status and touring to Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Israel, Germany, Belfast, Australia, Trondheim and most recently, Amsterdam and Prague. In 2018 it performed Britten’s War Requiem with the RSNO at the BBC Proms.

The RSNO Chorus evolved from a choir formed in 1843 to sing the first full performance of Handel’s Messiah in Scotland. Today, it is one of the most successful choruses in the UK. In recent years, it has performed practically every work in the standard choral repertoire along with contemporary works by renowned composers, including John Adams, Magnus Lindberg, Howard Shore and James MacMillan.