Margaret and Charlotte met while training at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. They formed the Hera Duo in 2006. Since graduating they have given recitals together and regularly perform for corporate events.

The group takes it name from the Greek goddess Hera a powerful queen who ruled over the heavens and the earth and was responsible for every aspect of the environment, including the seasons and the weather. She is the goddess of love and represents the fullness of life and reminds us that we can use our own wisdom in the pursuit of any goal we choose.

The Hera Duo were accepted onto the LMN scheme in July 2007.

Margaret Cooper, soprano
Margaret was born in London in 1982 and brought up in Oxford. She is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she studied as a scholarship student with Susan McCulloch. She completed first her BMus degree and then her Masters degree and then began training with Raymond Connell.

Margaret is currently studying with Yvonne Kenny. Her operatic roles include Donna Anna Don Giovanni, Adina L’Elisir D’Amore, Susanna Le Nozze di Figaro Dido Dido and Aeneas, Poppea L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Mercedes Carmen and Catherine (Offenbach's operetta) Pomme D'Api. She has performed female leads for the British premieres of Mendelssohn’s Camacho’s Wedding (Quiteria) and Lalo’s Fiesque (Leonore) both with UCO at the Bloomsbury Theatre and the world premiere of Ita Vivam (Mistress) by Christina Athinodorou. Solo experience includes the Bach Magnificat, Bach St John Passion, Beethoven Choral Symphony, Brahms Requiem, Gounod St Cecilia’s Mass, Handel Messiah, Handel Dixit Dominus, Haydn Creation, Mozart C Minor Mass, Mozart Requiem, Mozart Solemn Vespers, Orff Carmina Burana, Pergolese's Salve Regina and Rossini Missa Solemnis.

Margaret is frequently asked to do solo recitals in the UK and abroad. She performs regularly in France with a French opera company and at various music festivals around France. She has given recitals in Europe’s oldest concert hall, the Holywell Music Room, Oxford. She toured the south of England with Sarah Ings, saxophonist with ‘Across England to the Latin Quarter’ managed by Musicians Inc. and performed at St Paul’s Cathedral as part of their ‘Costing the Earth?’ series. Most recently she gave a concert with soprano Marilena Solomou at Kastelliotissa, Nicosia Cyprus.

Margaret has participated in masterclasses with Sally Burgess, Dame Rosalind Plowright, Jeremy Silver, Carlos Fernandez Aransey, Susan Gorton, Sarah Walker, Meribeth Dame, Emma Kirkby and Graham Johnson. Margaret has received the Compton Bach award, second prize for the English song competition and second prize for the Angle-Czech Trust competition. She has regular engagements with ‘Opera on the Run’ and First Act Opera International and performs for the Live Music Now! scheme founded by Yehudi Menuhin.

Charlotte Forrest Pianist
Charlotte Forrest was born in Bristol in 1980 and began learning the piano aged 7. As a music scholar at Badminton School she was a Royal Schools of Music High Scorer and made her St George’s debut playing in Saint-Saëns Carnival of the Animals. She went on to further her musical education as a Gutherie Watson Scholar at the University of Edinburgh where she graduated with a Bmus (Hons). Whilst in Scotland she performed in the Edinburgh Festival and at the Queen’s and Reid Concert Halls. Working as a soloist with the Edinburgh Contemporary Music Ensemble she performed Steve Reich’s Variations for winds, strings and keyboards and John Cage’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. In 2004 she continued her studies at the Guildhall School of Music in London where her professors were Caroline Palmer, Eugene Asti and Graham Johnson. Since completing her Masters in 2005 she has joined the Opera Department at the Guildhall School as a repetiteur on the Guildhall Artist Programme and is studying with Charles Owen. She has worked with several well-known pianists and singers including Malcolm Martineau, Rudolf Jansen, Iain Burnside, Ferenc Rados, Martin Katz, Helmut Deutsch, Richard Jackson and Sarah Walker. She is in much demand as an accompanist and has performed at the Wigmore Hall, LSO St Luke’s, Mansion House and the Henry Wood Hall for the finals of the Gerald Moore Award, and she has broadcast for BBC Radio 3. Recently she has been a guest performer for Swan Hellenic on their cruises of the Baltic Sea and South America, and on the Queen Elizabeth II with London Festival Opera.

Interlude is an exciting trio of young performers who met at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. They have given many successful concert performances at community festivals, schools, care homes, and corporate after dinner entertainment. Their large and varied repertoire includes highlights of English, French and German songs, musicals and popular songs of the 30s and 40s, and Operatic favourites. Recent highlights for the three performers include the prestigious International Lied Masterclasses in Brussels working with such renowned artists as Hartmut Höll, Udo Reinemann and Roger Vignoles and the L’Heures Romantiques Festival in France in 2009 and 2010. .Irish soprano Daire Halpin is enjoying a successful solo career with performances all over the world from the US to Japan. Hailing from the west coast of Canada, tenor John Bacon is in high demand as a concert and operatic soloist across Europe and North America. Bristol born pianist, Helen Mills leads a busy international career as an accompanist after being awarded the MMP Guildhall Artist qualification with a distinction in 2008. Interlude is now enjoying being a part of the late Yehudi Menuhin’s Live Music Now scheme.

JOHN BACON
England-based Canadian tenor John Bacon is rapidly establishing himself as a singer of exceptional musicianship, style and diverse range of repertoire. Having performed throughout Europe and Canada, this youthful tenor has also been praised for his dramatic intensity, vocal beauty, clarity and agility.

Recently, he completed a tour of France and England performing Handel’s Acis and Galatea with New European Opera, Bach’s St. John Passion with Gerald Van Wyck and the Pacific Baroque Orchestra in Vancouver and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with critically acclaimed Opera Erratica in Toronto.

A singer who excels at oratorio and song, John regularly performs a wide variety of repertoire ranging from Bach to Britten. Mr. Bacon’s concerts include working with such distinguished artists as Graham Johnson, Iain Burnside, Bruce Pullan and the Vancouver Bach Choir, and Early Music Vancouver.

Over the past few years John has amassed a number of operatic roles including; Tito in La Clemenza di Tito, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni by Mozart, Horace in La Colombe by Gounod, Raoul de Gardefeu in La Vie Parisienne, and Bill in Flight by Jonathan Dove, under the batons of such conductors as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sian Edwards and Alex Ingram.

Winner of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio Two Début Series for Young Performers, Mr. Bacon is also the recipient of a Koerner Foundation Artist Award and funding fellowship from the COB Foundation of Canada. Through this generous support, he recently completed the Postgraduate Opera program at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama under the tutelage of Rudolf Piernay. Prior to this he sang with the Juno award-nominated vocal ensemble musica intima and completed a Bachelor of Music at the University British Columbia

HELEN MILLS
is in great demand as a accompanist and chamber musician. Her performances with established musicians have taken her around the UK, Europe, South America and, most recently, Switzerland where she toured with prize-winning violinist Fabienne Leresche in November 2009. Helen has also worked for various summer schools including Abingdon Summer School for Solo singers and Tutti Flutey in Scotland. After graduating with a degree in music from Birmingham University in 2004, Helen took up her post as Staff Accompanist at the specialist music institution Wells Cathedral School for two years before winning a scholarship to study Piano Accompaniment at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. During her time there she studied with many reputable musicians and participated in a number of recitals and projects, for which she received prizes and glowing reviews. In 2008 she graduated with distinction in the Masters in Music Performance (Guildhall Artist) qualification. Then in April 2009 Helen completed Udo Reinemann’s monthly International Lied Masterclasses at the Royal Conservatoire of Brussels and went on to perform at the Festival des Heures Romantiques that summer. Currently, as well as working as a freelance accompanist, Helen works as a staff accompanist at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and teaches piano to an advanced level in London.

Irmina and Pavel are dazzling the audiences with their interpretations and charismatic performances. Established soloists in their own right, they have been brought together by their mutual love of chamber music making. The duo always brings something fresh to the medium; their interest extends from baroque sonatas to the latest 21st Century composers as well as jazz music and improvisation.
They also enjoy bringing music to unusual venues and places where audiences have little opportunity to listen to live music. This is one of the reasons why Irmina and Pavel where invited to join Live Music Now! - a charitable organization founded by Yehudi Menuhin, where artists give concerts to a variety of communities all over the United Kingdom.
The duo has recently performed at the Notting Hill Mayfest, London, where they presented an evening of Russian music to a great critical and public acclaim.

Irmina Trynkos is one of the most exciting new talents of the younger generation of violinists. Having already made her mark worldwide, performing with such international artists as Maestro Neeme Järvi and pianist Ayke Agus, she creates a storm of applause in her concerts wherever she appears.

“Her extremely open, exciting and extraordinary personality, underpinned by self-belief, restores our faith that in art what really counts is truth, leaving a mark in our hearts and souls”. As well as captivating the attention of critics and committed music lovers, Irmina is also a gifted communicator, acting as an ambassador promoting classical music to the young and to new audiences.

She has recently been selected for two prestigious awards, Live Music Now 2010 Artist and the Maisie Lewis Award of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. As a result, Irmina will be widely promoted across the UK and will give a recital in Wigmore Hall in 2010/2011 season. The excitement surrounding her abilities has also led to the invitation to record her debut CD, which is planned for release at the end of 2010.

Irmina, based in the UK, is of Greek-Polish descent, with no musicians in her family background. She made her debut when she was 8 years old. Bravely leaving her native Poland at early age, she had the opportunity to study with the best professors around the world: this has included Lydia Mordkovitch at the Royal Academy of Music London, Martin Chalifour – USC Thornton Music School Los Angeles, Martin Mumelter –“Mozarteum” Salzburg and Nina Minko-Zielinskaya at Kiev Music Conservatory. She has also benefitted from coaching with Edward Grach, Nam Yun Kim, Krzysztof Wegrzyn, Wanda Wilkomirska amongst others.
In July 2005, she was the first person in the history of the “Mozarteum” Music University in Salzburg to be awarded a Bachelor degree after only two years of study.

Irmina has received many international awards and scholarships including the Belmore Woodgate Award, the AHRC Scholarship (twice), the BPH Bank Foundation sponsorship, the prestigious Serena Nevill Prize, 2nd Prize in the Palermo International Violin Competition, a full scholarship with Prof. Martin Chalifour at the USC Thornton School of Music, Arcana Foundation Award, Mozarteum Award etc. In 2000 she was a finalist at the 20th Century Music International Competition in Poland and established herself there as one of the most promising young violinists.

She has played at such venues as Wiener Saal, Mozarteum Grosser Saal, Frohnborg Saal, St. Martin in the Fields, St. James Piccadilly, National Portrait Gallery London, Politeama Theatre, Alfred Newman Recital Hall etc.
Future engagements include her debut CD Recording, a concert tour promoting the CD in 2011 including venues in Poland, Germany and the UK, concerts at the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elisabeth Hall - Southbank Centre London, St. John’s Smith Square, St. Martin in the Fields, St. Paul’s at Covent Garden, the International Festival of Competition Prize Winners, “Silesia” concert series, the Radziejowice Palace Recital Series, Spring Festival in Naleczów and concertos with The Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra, The Swietokrzyska Philharmonic, Wieniawski Philharmonic, Torun Symphonic Orchestra and the Northampton Symphony Orchestra. Irmina plays on Jakob Stainer Violin from 1670.

PAVEL TIMOFEJEVSKY
Pavel Timofejevsky, pianist and composer, began his music studies at the age of six at the Gnessin Music School in Russia. In 1995 he entered the Purcell School of Music on full scholarship and won a number of prestigious awards and national competitions including the BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer of the Year award.

Pavel studied at the Royal Academy of Music from 2002 with Professor Tatiana Sarkissova gaining his Bachelor degree in 2006 and receiving the Leslie England Award for achieving one of the highest marks for his Final Recital. He was then invited to perform solo in the Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the Shostakovich centenary festival. At RAM, he was awarded the John Ireland prize, the Michael Head prize for best accompanist, a special prize at the Jacques Samuels Piano Competition, as well as a prize at the Beethoven Society Intercollegiate Competition, with a resulting performance at St. James, Piccadilly.

Always interested in trying something new, Pavel, in 2005, recorded the soundtrack and starred as young Tchaikovsky in the documentary film “Tchaikovsky” for the US “Biography TV” channel. Two years later he was commissioned to compose the score for the feature-length documentary “Le fin de la belle époque” for Russian TV which received great critical acclaim.

Pavel continued at the Royal Academy studying for the Postgraduate Diploma in Performance course. During that time he was recipient of the Musician Benevolent Fund Award, the 2007 Myra Hess Award, and the Philharmonia Orchestra Martin Musical Scholarship Fund Award. At the academy, Pavel was awarded the Janet Duff Greet Prize for best performance of twentieth century music, for his interpretation of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No 4. He graduated with distinction in July 2008.
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Pavel has given solo and chamber performances in the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, St. James’ Piccadilly, St. John’s Smith Square, St. Martin’s in the Field, Lauderdale House, and the Bishopsgate Institute. He has also performed in Paris, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Cyprus, Calcutta (a concert broadcast live on Indian Television) and Mumbai. In September 2007, he was invited to join the ‘Live Music Now’ concert scheme and has since performed in various community venues throughout the UK.

In 2008, Pavel received 4th prize at the 19th Haverhill Sinfonia Soloist International Competition. He continues to perform at festivals and concert series across UK, and has become a regular live-performing guest on the SW1 London Radio’s Passport show. In October 2009 Pavel was appointed Musician in Residence at St John’s Church, Notting Hill, London, for the 2009-2010 concert season. He will be performing there throughout the year, giving a number of solo recitals as well as chamber music concerts and has recently produced two highly successful concerts for the Notting Hill MAYFEST 2010.

The season of 2010 will also see Pavel performing at Schumann and Chopin Festivals at St. Barnabas Church, West London. He has recently recorded an album of music for saxophone, violin and piano by composer Ian Stewart which will be released on the music-chamber label. A promotional tour of the album will follow in 2010-2011.

James Sherlock studied the piano and organ at Chetham's School of Music and Eton College, and later as an organ scholar at Winchester Cathedral and Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated from Cambridge University in 2007 and has since been pursuing further research into music and autism whilst continuing his piano studies with Joan Havill, Senior Professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

He was a winner of 2007's BBC Fame Academy: The Next Generation as pianist and conductor, and took gold medal in the Marcello Galanti International Organ Competition in 2005. His recent CD of chamber music by David Earl on the Divine Art label won the new music "disk of the year" award in International Piano Magazine. He has performed at the festivals of Windsor,
Cambridge, Ravenna, La Verna, Olomouc, on BBC Radio 2, 3 and 4, and on cruise ships around the world.

He is delighted to be part of the Live Music Now scheme, the largest outreach group of its kind in the UK. He is also organist of St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, and musical director of the Figaro Opera Project.

Twenty two year old Jamie Munn has just graduated from the BMus programme at the RSAMD under the tuition of Iain Paton. He has also spent time at Berlin’s Universität der Künste (UdK) studying with Prof. Siegfried Lorenz and Prof. Peter Maus. Whilst at the RSAMD, Jamie has played Spalazani in Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman, Karatyev in Prokofiev’s War and Peace.and covered the role of Pantalon in Prokofiev’s The Love of Three Oranges. He also travelled to Russia to perform the roles of Karatyev and Monsieur de Beauce for further performances of War and Peace in Rostov-on-Don.

Concert experience has included the Schütz St Matthew Passion and Die sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz, Haydn Missa in Angustiis and Missa in tempore belli, Vaughan Williams Mass in g minor, Charpentier Messe de Minuits, Bernstein Chichester Psalms (BBC Radio 3), Mozart Requiem and Coronation Mass.

Jamie has sung in recital in Berlin, Rouen (France), Rostov-on-Don (Russia), London, Edinburgh and Glasgow and was recently broadcast on BBC Radio performing rediscovered songs by Mendelssohn. He has participated in masterclasses with Malcolm Martineau, Ann Murray, Richard Stokes, Håkan Hagegård and Robin Bowman. Jamie is currently working in Bonn, Germany with the European Music Council and is delighted to be part of Live Music Now!

Anne Macgregor

Anne began piano lessons at the age of six and when she was fourteen began attending the RSAMD Junior Academy where she studied with Marina Nadiradze and won both the Beethoven Prize and the Gilbert Innes Prize for Piano two years running.
Having been accepted into the RSAMD in 2005, Anne studied initially with Philip Jenkins followed by Fali Pavri. She has taken part in masterclasses with Stephen Osborne, Martino Tirimo, Malcolm Martineau, Lesley Howard, Rolf Hind and Vanessa Latarche and has won academic prizes for History, Analysis and Counterpoint, and the Sibelius Essay Prize. In performance, she has won the Bach Prize, the John Ireland Prize, 3rd prize in the RSAMD Bamber/Galloway Piano Competition and 1st prize in the Peter Lindsay Prize for Piano Duo with her duo partner Silviya Mihaylova. She graduated with a first class degree in July and is now on the Postgraduate Diploma in Performance course.
In November 2007 Anne won 1st prize at the Moray Piano Competition and as a result was invited to give a solo recital in Inverness. In PLUG 2008 she premiered ‘Black and White Romance’, a piano concerto by fellow student Claire Mackenzie. Anne enjoys chamber music and regularly accompanies other students in exams, recitals and competitions. In 2009/10, in addition to her studies, Anne took on the role of Music Apprentice at St George’s-Tron Church, which included organising and presenting Music at Midday, a series of 20 lunchtime recitals held weekly in Glasgow city centre.

The short story:Jamie Smith, aged 24, has been playing with Mabon for seven years. He first started to play the accordion seriously in 1998 after a lifetime of persuasion from his parents. Jamie taught himself through a combination of playing along to cds at home, gigging with Mabon and accompanying the Welsh folk dancers, Dawnswyr Penyfai. As Mabon's sound developed, Jamie took the lead creatively and started composing his own tunes, drawing inspiration from all the Celtic nations and also further afield. He now writes most of Mabon¹s material himself and gets immense satisfaction from hearing his tunes come to life through the rest of the band. Jamie hopes that in time, other musicians and groups will start playing and recording his tunes so he won¹t have to! In addition to the accordion, Jamie also plays guitar and has recently picked up the mandolin. As well as tunes, he enjoys writing songs and occasionally performs as a singer-songwriter, something he hopes to do more of in the future.

Jemma Brown (mezzo soprano) was a music scholar at St Leonards School, St Andrews, before obtaining a BMus (hons) from the University of Glasgow in 2007, studying with Patricia MacMahon. While at the University she held a Lanfine choral scholarship and the Currie studentship for organ, and in her final year she was awarded the Hague prize for performance and the Cramb travel bursary.

She graduated in 2008 with a PgDip from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and in 2009 with a Master of Music in performance. Jemma is currently continuing her studies with Kathleen McKellar Ferguson on the MMus (opera) course at the Alexander Gibson Opera School, RSAMD, with assistance from the RSAMD scholarship trust and generous support from the Donald Dewar Arts Awards.

Recent oratorio performances have included the Durufle requiem with Glasgow University Chapel Choir, Haydn Creation and St Bernarda Mass with Glasgow University Choral Society, Handel Messiah in Dornoch Cathedral and in the Usher Hall, Purcell Ode to St Cecilia’s day at the Festival Fringe, Buxtehude Membra Jesu Nostri with the Clyde consort and Mendelssohn Elijah in Greyfriars Kirk with the Edinburgh Singers.

Jemma sang the world premiere of Kirsty Blackwood’s These Delicious Promptings, which was commissioned as a collaboration with visual artist Anna Henson, at the 2008 Glasgow International Visual Arts Festival. Jemma also participated in the RSAMD's Max at 75 festival to high critical acclaim singing Dark Angels, a cycle for mezzo and guitar.

Recent roles in opera scenes include: Leonora (Donizetti La Favorita), Genevieve (Debussy Pelleas et Melisande), Zia Principessa (Puccini Suor Angelica), Mistress Quickly (Verdi Falstaff), Auntie (Britten Peter Grimes). Roles this year include Mavra Kuzminichna in Prokofiev's War and Peace, and Marga the Mesmerist in the world premiere of Rory Boyle's Kaspar Hauser.

She is an active recitalist with pianist Maryam Sherhan, and they are members of Live Music Now!, a scheme set up by Yehudi Menuhin to help young professional musicians and to take quality live music into venues lacking in live performance, such as schools, nursing homes and prisons.

Jennifer Port was brought up in the rural far north village of Golspie in Sutherland. She has been interested in music all of her life and began learning piano at the age of 8. Since then, she has also learned oboe, guitar, clarsach, cor anglais & singing.

The magnificent, soaring backdrop of Glasgow Cathedral was the perfect setting. The evening had begun with a thoroughly captivating performance from clarsach player Jennifer Port. Undaunted by the surroundings, she combined an engaging onstage manner with playing of pristine poise, mouthwatering sweetness and sparkling vitality.
Sue Wilson, The Scotsman.
Feb 2003

"Jennifer is an incredible musician and one of the most talented and brightest students the RSAMD has produced. She has an excellent future ahead of her as a freelance musician and she is the perfect ambassador for the clarsach."
Brian McNeill, Head of Scottish Music at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama

She started learning clarsach with the encouragement of P6 teacher Graham McCarthy to whom she is most grateful. She joined the Clarsach Society and attended tuition weekends and festivals alongside weekly lessons from Vicki Horton. She enjoyed participating in various Feisean throughout Scotland and successfully competed in the National Mod for a number of years. In January 2002, Jennifer won a Danny Kyle award at Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow.

Jennifer graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama with a BA(Scottish Music)Honours in July 2003 having studied clarsach, singing and composition. She is now a full time freelance musician and has been part of Yehudi Menuhin’s Live Music Now scheme since November 2006.

During her spare time, Jennifer enjoys playing and watching sport. Travelling is a great hobby which she combines well with her music.

Jiang Shu, a Chinese Zheng (a 21-stringed zither) and Qin (a 7-stringed zither) player was born in a folk musician family in China and started to learn the zithers in her childhood. She accomplishes her BA degree from Shanghai Conservatory of Music, China and a MA degree in ethnomusicology from the University of Sheffield. Since her outstanding academic performance in China, after she achieved her first degree, she was employed as a senior lecturer in Department of Music, Xiamen University, China. Now she continues her PhD in the University of Sheffield.

Working alongside various folk and traditional musicians in China through out the years, she has accumulated a wide repertoire of Chinese music. During her stay in the UK, she participated in many major events organised by Chinese community, universities and local organizations actively. Apart from these, she continues her musical journey, learning and experimenting with sound and immersing herself in the world fusion music scene and entwining Chinese music with Irish folk music, Indian Classical and rock music.