Barbara Cole Swinard comes from Vancouver Island, Canada, and has specialised in singing Disney since the tender age of 4. She moved to Glasgow to attend the RCS and now balances opera singing with moonlighting as “the one who sings the high notes” for The All Sorts.
At Scottish Opera she has sung the Shepherd Boy in Tosca and covered the Controller in Flight (Jonathon Dove) and Casilda in The Gondoliers. Other singing work has included touring in England, France, and Japan as Blonde in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail for Diva Opera and premiering as the Linnet in The Selfish Giant (John Barber) for Garsington Youth Opera.
Covid–19 has brought out Barbara’s love of power tools and gardening. She is now the owner of a shed and is enjoying expanding her collection of dangerous saws.
Scottish mezzo-soprano Heather Ireson studied at the University of Aberdeen and Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music, and continues her studies with Patricia MacMahon. She was an Associate Artist at Scottish Opera.
Scottish Opera appearances: Opera Highlights Spring 2019, chorus Eugene Onegin, chorus Iris, chorus Nixon in China, Infirmary Sister in Suor Angelica/Il Trittico.
Operatic engagements include: Hamlet by Brett Dean, Così fan tutte, chorus The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, chorus Beatrice and Benedict, chorus Don Pasquale, chorus Carmen, chorus Poliuto by Donizetti, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Saul (Glyndebourne); Karolka Jenůfa (Grange Park Opera); chorus Il campanello by Donizetti, chorus Herculanum by Félicien David, chorus Vanessa by Barber (Wexford Festival Opera), Cherubino in Marriage of Figaro (Opera Bohemia).
Jane Monari hails from the city of Philadelphia, USA. She completed her BMus at Juilliard and her MA at the Royal Academy of Music, before moving to Scotland to study opera at the RCS.
She appeared as a soloist with the City of Glasgow Chorus and the Orchestra of Scottish Opera (Missa Solemnis, Israel in Egypt, Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, Mozart’s Requiem) and has since worked in the Scottish Opera chorus, mostly singing, but sometimes cracking the whip as dance captain, most recently with the company’s production of Ainadamar. She has sung the Page (Rigoletto, Scottish Opera), the Prince (Cendrillon, Fife Opera), Carmen (Opera at the King’s Head), and Suzuki (Madam Butterfly, OperaUpClose). She also recently appeared in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall as a soloist with Scottish Opera’s Verdi Collection in February 2023. She’s performed as Dance Captain in both Scottish Opera and Welsh National Opera’s performances of Ainadamar.
She loves singing the accompanimental bass part, as she rarely has to remember any words.
Dublin-born soprano Sarah Power studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and the Guildhall and National Opera Studio in London before moving to Glasgow to work for Scottish Opera as an Emerging Artist. She has been awarded many prizes, including the Royal Dublin Society Bursary, the London Bach Singers Prize and second prize in the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Competition at the Wigmore Hall.
Recent engagements include Pop-Up Opera performances of The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro and Puccini’s Il Trittico with Scottish Opera, Fauré’s Requiem and Haydn’s Nelson Mass with The Burford Singers, Haydn’s Creation with the Yorkshire Philharmonic Choir, Mozart’s Requiem with The Really Big Chorus in Trieste, Italy and Forrest’s Requiem and Haydn’s Little Organ Mass with the Wicklow Choral Society, Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Cumbria Singers and Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’Été with the Airedale Symphony Orchestra.
Sarah has appeared in productions for Welsh National Opera, Buxton Opera Festival, Wexford Festival Opera and Irish National Opera and made her debut for Scottish Opera in the title role of Handel’s Rodelinda. She has been involved in the premiere of many works, including Hazel: Made in Belfast at the Carnegie Hall, New York, Mary Gordon with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall Dublin and Janice Kerbel’s Turner Prize-nominated work DOUG at the Tramway in Glasgow.
Sarah Shorter was peer pressured into taking her first singing lessons at the tender age of 10. It’s a slippery slope. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in London where she studied with Anne Howells, and moved to Glasgow for love, liberty and, apparently, close harmony.
Before lockdown, she sang the role of Julia Bertram in Jonathan Dove’s Mansfield Park with Opera South, but north of the border you might have noticed her performing regularly with Scottish Opera and the Dunedin Consort. With Scottish Opera, she has covered Giovanna in Rigoletto, Flora in La Traviata, Peep Bo and Katisha in The Mikado, and Mercedes in Carmen. She has created the role of Boletta in Lady from the Sea, sung the roles of Second Postulant in Suor Angelica, Lady in Waiting and Second Witch in Verdi’s Macbeth and Kitchen Boy in Rusalka. She recently got back to doing what she loves in frilly style by cachucha fandango bolero–ing in The Gondoliers.
She is a founder member of the a cappella group The All Sorts, is the Musical Director of the Close Shave Chorus, and teaches from Mount Florida Music Studio in Glasgow. She also performed with Opera Alba in their November 2022 tour.
Her DIY projects are ongoing and she will happily talk about plasterboard if you really want.
Scottish mezzo soprano, Laura Margaret Smith is an award winning performer who enjoys an exciting and versatile international career. Described as “a name to watch” by Gramophone magazine, Laura’s operatic roles include Brangäne, Tristan und Isolde (Mahler Players), Eudamia, Dorilla in Tempe – Vivaldi (Wexford Festival Opera), Olga,Eugene Onegin (Edinburgh International Festival Opera Project), Tina, Dinner at Eight – Bolcom (Wexford Festival Opera), La Gobba, Risurrezione – Alfano (Wexford FestivalOpera), Angiolina, La Cenerentola (Scottish Opera Unwrapped), Lola, Cavalleria Rusticana(Paisley Opera), Ordinary Person, Inés de Castro – James MacMillan (Scottish Opera), Vaila, Hirda – Gareth Williams & Chris Stout (NOISE/Celtic Connections), the title role in Carmen (Edinburgh Grand Opera), Hermia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Scottish Opera/RCS), Amahl, Amahl and the Night Visitors (Opera Bohemia). Laura has sung with the Bayreuth Festival Chorus since 2015 performing all the major Wagner repertoire.
Equally at home on the concert platform, Laura has performed in venues such as theMelbourne Recital Centre with the Edinburgh International Festival, Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Kings Place for the Yehudi Menuhin Centenary Concert, St. Martin-in-the-fields, The Usher Hall, The Queen’s Hall, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, The Caird Hall and Aberdeen’s The Citadel in a live broadcast for BBC Radio 3. She is a regular oratorio soloist in the UK, recently singing Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 in Glasgow’s City Halls. Laura also specialises in contemporary music and has sung with The Wallace Collection Ensemble, Red Note Ensemble, NOISE, Opera Mahogany, Psappha Ensemble and Scottish Voices. With Hamburg State Opera and the Bundesjugendballett, she sang as soloist in David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion at PODIUM Festival and premiered and recorded John Maxwell Geddes’ A Castle Mills Suite for Delphian Records.
Laura is a former Scottish Opera Robertson Scholarship Trust Emerging Artist, graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Alexander Gibson Opera School, a recipient of a Young Concert Artists Award from Making Music, alumna of the Georg Solti Accademia di Bel Canto, Samling Artist, Britten-Pears Young Artist and an alumna of Live Music Now Scotland.
Grace Maria Wain graduated from RWCMD with an MA in Opera Performance, before moving to Scotland.
She has most recently sung 1st lady in The Spectre Knight with Wexford Festival Opera, Giulia in The Gondoliers, and has also covered Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Second Lady in The Magic Flute and Glasha in Katya Kabanova, all for Scottish Opera. She has also sung Zweite Dame/Zweite Knabe in Die Zauberflöte (Escales Lyriques) and Prince Charmant in Cendrillon (Fife Opera). Currently she’s singing the role of Cercatrice in Sir David McVicar’s production of Suor Angelica (Il Trittico)
As is the fate of mezzos everywhere, Grace has spent most of her career singing an awkward harmony somewhere below the sopranos but, since forming The All Sorts, she has found great fulfilment in (sometimes) being allowed to sing the tune.
Scottish soprano Emily Mitchell, began her formal classically training at the RSAMD (now Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), where she gained a Bachelor in Music and a Masters in Music under the tutelage of Margaret Aronson. She is a regular performer with Scottish Opera and the Dunedin Consort.
She also has an extensive concert career ranging from solo recital work to Oratorio. Her Oratorio engagements include Brahms Requiem at the Usher Hall, Mozart’s Coronation Mass (Canterbury Cathedral) and Exultate Jubilate, Haydn’s Creation, Mendelssohn’s Elijah at Canterbury Cathedral, Howells Hymnus Paradisi, Bach Magnificat and Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Handel Gloria, Vivaldi’s In Furore Iustissimae Irae, Handel Messiah at the AMUZ in Antwerp.
Performances:
7.30pm, Friday 11 September 2026: Trinity Church, Falkirk
3pm, Sunday 19 April 2026: Music in St Mary’s Aberfoyle
2.30pm, Monday 11 August 2025: Ross Priory
7.30pm, Wednesday 9 October 2024: The Round Church, Bowmore, Islay
7.30pm, Friday 22 March 2024, Music in West Kilbride, WK Village Hall
3pm, Sunday 10 December 2023, Crail Community Hall
7.30pm, Saturday 2 December 2023, Mid Argyll Arts Association, Lochgilphead Parish Church
7.30pm, Friday 1 December 2023, Bute Arts Society, Rothesay
3 – 4pm, Sunday 19 November 2023, Music in Aberfoyle, St Mary’s Church
3pm, Sunday 15 October 2023, Hawick Music Club, St Mary’s Old Parish Church Hall, Buccleuch Street, Hawick TD9 0HH
7.30pm, Friday 29 September 2023, Moffat Music Society, Old Well Theatre
7pm, Thursday 28 September 2023, Junction 50 concerts, Thirsk
11:30am, Saturday 18 March 2023, Bearsden Coffee Concert, Bearsden South Church
3pm, Sunday 19 March 2023, Music in Dollar
Sunday 22 January 2023, Stranraer Music for All
Saturday 21 January 2023, Ayr Music Club
Wednesday 13 April 2022: Biggar Music Society
Sunday 10 April 2022: Dunblane Cathedral Arts Guild
Sunday 13 December 2020: Biggar Music Club online
Wednesday 04 November 2020: Strathearn Music Society online
Tuesday 03 November 2020: Music Arran online
Sunday 09 February 2020: Gatehouse-of-Fleet
Sunday 15 December 2019: Dunfermline Arts Guild
Sunday 27 October 2019: Music in Rannoch
Wednesday 12 June 2019: Stranraer
Wednesday 22 May 2019: Inverness, At One with Music
Friday 17 May 2019: Private party, Ross Priory
Sunday 27 January 2019: Sundays at Seven, Helensburgh
Wednesday 5 December 2018: Westbourne Music Society
Friday 23 November 2018: Thurso West Church
Saturday 08 September 2018: Renfield St Stephen’s, Glasgow
Thursday, 06 September 2018: Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh
Saturday 01 September 2018: Cove Burgh Hall
