About YSWF

An exceptional coloratura soprano, Lillian Watson has appeared on all major opera and concert stages in the world, in repertoire from Mozart to Strauss and Britten. She has recorded for every major record label, with such distinguished conductors as Sir Georg Solti, Bernard Haitink, Sir Colin Davies, Sir Simon Rattle and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. One of Europe’s most highly regarded singing teachers, she is currently a Professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and is a member of British Youth Opera’s Artistic Committee.
Lillian Watson

David Wydenbach joined Lloyds Bank in 1962 and retired from the company’s general management team in 1994 having been the bank’s director on a number of companies including Bacs Ltd, where he was deputy chairman, and Chaps Ltd. Since that time he has been involved in the small business environment, as both an investor and active director

Kathryn Harries studied at the Royal Academy of Music and made her opera debut as Leonore/Fidelio for Welsh National Opera in 1983 since when she has appeared with all the UK companies including Covent Garden, ENO and Glyndebourne and in major houses throughout the USA (including the Met, Chicago and San Francisco) and Europe. Recent engagements have included performances of Kostelnicka for Glyndebourne, Lyon, Chicago, San Francisco, Genova and Bilbao, and Mrs Sedley/Peter Grimes in Salzburg with Sir Simon Rattle. She is the Director of the National Opera Studio and has single-handedly raised over £1million for charity.

Rosemary Joshua studied at the Royal College of Music, of which she is now a Fellow. It is above all as a Handel singer that Rosemary Joshua has built her international reputation, in particular the title role in ‘Semele’ to great critical acclaim. A prolific recording artist, she has appeared in major roles at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Festival d’Aix en Provence, Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, La Scala, Milan, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Netherlands Opera, ENO, WNO, Glyndebourne Festival and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Jane Glover studied at the University of Oxford, where, after graduation, she did her D.Phil. on 17th-century Venetian opera. She holds honorary degrees from several other universities, and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Music. She was created a CBE in the 2003 New Year’s Honours. Music Director of Chicago’s Music of the Baroque since 2002, and in continual demand on the international opera and concert stages, she made her professional debut at the Wexford Festival, conducting her own edition of Cavalli’s L’Eritrea. She subsequently joined Glyndebourne and was Music Director of the Glyndebourne Touring Opera from 1981 to 1985. From 1984 to 1991 she was Artistic Director of the London Mozart Players. In January 2009, she joined the Royal Academy of Music as Artistic Director of Opera.

Supported by a scholarship from Diva Opera, Nicola Mellon completed her postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Music in 2003, and in 2004 was a member of the prestigious Académie Européenne de Musique in Aix-en-Provence. Most recently she has appeared in Britten’s Death in Venice (Russian Mother and Newspaper Seller) at the Aldeburgh and Bregenz Festivals conducted by Paul Daniel. An experienced oratorio soloist, she has sung Brahms’ Requiem under Sir Neville Marriner and toured with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir. She is highly regarded as a music educationalist.

As an architect, Hugh Morgan has spent most of his working life delivering buildings that often take years to come to fruition. This is happily balanced by his wife Lillian Watson whose highpoints in Opera, while more transient have been much more frequent. Hugh admits to being involved with the YSWF because singers are more fun than architects and their endeavours should not be cut short by lack of appropriate support.