Erika Miranda - Director Violin/Viola USA

Trained in the USA, (San Francisco Conservatory of Music and St Louis Conservatory of Music), UK (Anglo-American Chamber Music for Strings in England), Canada (Johanessen International School for the Arts) and France (European Community Baroque Orchestra). She lived and worked in England for many years taking additional training with Kato Havas in Oxford .

For seven years, Erika was Principal for English Festival Opera as well as playing for orchestras such as London Schubert Players, London Apollo Orchestra, and the City of Oxford Orchestra touring and recording with these ensembles. While living in Oxford she became a Founder/ Director of her own ensemble and established two highly successful concert series in collaboration with (and sponsored by) the Oxford City Council and local businesses. Ms. Miranda has also adjudicated for concertmaster auditions at Oxford University.

For the last seven years, since returning to the States, she has been on the music faculty and directed programs for the musically eminent Crowden School in Berkeley, California and has developed a highly respected violin studio with many prize-winning students. She has also acted as Interim-Director for the Sacramento Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program in 2002 and for the last two years has been Head of Strings for the Berkeley Youth Orchestra and helped implement and direct their chamber music program.

In 2003 Erika collaborated with the Oxford Chamber Music Course to bring gifted American students to England to experience playing with English students. This collaboration then gave birth to the idea of founding the British and American Chamber Music Exchange which has now become Youth Music International.

In 2006 YouMI launched the First International Youth Music Festival in San Francisco in collaboration with SF State University's School of Music and Dance and the National Youth Strings Academy in Britain. The festival brought together an eminent international faculty from the US and UK as well as 60 highly gifted students from California and Britain. After an exciting masterclass given by the Alexander Quartet, the festival culminated with diverse and unforgettable performances at three of the most historic landmarks in San Francisco: Grace Cathedral, Mission Dolores and St. Mary's Cathedral.

Erika has also been Principle for the Sacramento Opera and Choral Society for the last seven years and also continues to free-lance and play with orchestras and chamber music ensembles in the San Francisco Bay Area.

John Cotton - Choral Director Countertenor UK

John's formal singing training began, aged 7, as a chorister with the Southend Boys Choir. Aged 9 he became a chorister (later Head Chorister for 2 years) at Rochester Cathedral, Kent, and a music scholar at the Choir School. Aged 13, he was awarded a music scholarship to Harrow School where he played Piano, Violin and Organ. In his lower 6th year, John discovered his falsetto and a term later was offered a choral scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read Theology. After completing his degree, he was invited to continue singing in the Magdalen Chapel Choir as an alto Lay Clerk.

In 1999, John was appointed an alto Lay Clerk at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, where he continued to sing until 2007. During his first year at Christ Church he studied as a postgraduate at Trinity College of Music, where he gained a vocal diploma. John has sung in London and abroad with a variety of ensembles, including the Gabrieli Consort. He has also performed on television and in a number of films, including Longitude, How Music Works, and Stage Beauty; and his voice has been featured on a number of soundtracks, including Ever After and most recently Mr Bean's Holiday. He can be heard on dozens of recordings from each of the choirs in which he has sung, including his last recording with Christ Church, a critically acclaimed account of Taverner's Missa Gloria Tibi Trinitas.

John's experience as a Choral Director began at school and continued at university, where he was director of the Magdalen Singers from 1996-7. At Christ Church he founded, in 2001, an a capella group, The Clerks of Christ Church, which has performed in venues as various as Christ Church, Oxford, Christchurch, New Zealand (where they toured in 2002, 2003 and 2004), Le Manoir aux Quatr'Saisons (Raymond Blanc's Restaurant and Hotel), and Dorchester and Douai Abbeys, as well as for the memorial service of Lord Jenkins, the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and in the presence of the then Prime Minister Tony Blair. In July 2004 The Clerks of Christ Church made their film debut in Sir Richard Eyre's Stage Beauty, starring Billy Crudup and Clare Danes. The Clerks of Christ Church have signed exclusively to SOMM Records. Their debut disc, In Pace, was released in 2004, and was followed by A Garland of the Elizabethan. A recording of Tallis' contribution to the 1575 publication Cantiones Sacrae is to follow shortly, all the music being edited anew by John.

John has recently formed another group, The Renaissance Men, with the intention of recording the complete works of Tomas Luis de Victoria, using his own editions. Their first recording, the Missa Pro Defunctis (1583) and Officium Defunctorum (1592), is due for release soon.

From 2006-7, John was Director of the Cherwell Singers, an Oxford-based chamber choir. Concerts included major programmes at Merton College Chapel, Oxford and the Holywell Music Room, Oxford, as well as smaller engagements. The choir made great progress under John's direction, and was very sad when, in 2007, he left to take up his current role as Head of Music at Wychwood School in Oxford, where he had conducted the Chamber Choir and taught singing since 2003. John is now solely responsible for the musical life of the school and recent projects have included a highly successful production of Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas. He was present as an observer at the 2007 International Youth Music Festival in Oxford, UK and was asked by Erika Miranda to direct the Choral Course which is running in conjunction with the Chamber Music Course for the first time at the 2008 Festival in San Francisco.

John Kendall Bailey - Associate Conductor USA

John Kendall Bailey is Music Director, Principal Conductor and Chorus Master of
Trinity Lyric Opera, Music Director and Conductor of Voices of Musica Sacra, Associate
Conductor of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, and Artistic Director
of the San Francisco Song Festival.
 
In 1994, Mr. Bailey founded the Berkeley Lyric Opera and served as its Music Director
and Conductor until 2001. Since then he has been a guest conductor with the Oakland
East Bay Symphony, Oakland Youth Orchestra, and Oakland Ballet, and music director
and conductor for productions with North Bay Opera, Mission City Opera, Goat Hall
Productions, Solo Opera, the Crowden School and Dominican University. From 2002-2006 he was Chorus Master of the Festival Opera of Walnut Creek. He has recently conducted the premieres of two of David Conte’s operas, America Tropical and Famous, and has been guest conductor for the University of California-Berkeley Chamber Chorus and the University of California-Davis Chorus, Chamber Singers, and Alumni Chorus.

Upcoming engagements include guest conductor with the American Philharmonic “Sonoma County and Music Director and Conductor for the Castro Valley Center for the Arts production of Carousel.
 
As a baritone, oboist, pianist, and lecturer, Mr. Bailey has appeared with numerous orchestras, choruses, and opera companies throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

Photo by Hanya Chlala -
ArenaPAL.com

Guy Johnston - Cellist UK

BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2000, Guy Johnston's teachers have included Doane and Kirshbaum. Projects in 06/07 include performances of the Elgar Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Walton Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic and Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations with the St. Petersburg Symphony; Guy looks forward to working in future seasons with the Deutsches Sinfonie Berlin (Brahms Double Concerto with Sophia Jaffe), the Philharmonia and Camerata Ireland (Schumann and Tavener). Guy has also collaborated with the BBC Symphony at the Proms, as well as orchestras including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and the Osaka Philharmonic, and has worked with Vassily Sinaisky, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Alexander Dimitriev and Leonard Slatkin. Guy Johnston performs regularly at Wigmore Hall, and has recently joined the BBC New Generation Scheme with the Aronowitz Ensemble, with whom he will be giving future concerts at many of the major music festivals at home and abroad. More Information at : www.imgartists.com. Guy plays on a rare cello made by Pellizon dated 1820.

Laura Samuel - Violinist, Belcea Quartet UK

Established whilst studying at the Royal College of Music in 1994, the Belcea Quartet has quickly gained a reputation as one of the world's leading chamber ensembles. They represented Great Britian in the ECHO Rising Stars series and were selected for the BBC Radio 3 New Generations scheme from 1999 to 2001. They won first prizes at both the Osaka and Bordeaux International String Quartet Competitions in 1999 and the Royal Philharmonic Society's Chamber Music Award in both in 2001 and 2003. In 2001 the quartet began an exclusive recording contract with EMI and won the Gramophone Award for the Best Debut Recording. Their future recording plans for EMI include the complete Bartok quartets. The Belcea Quartet's international engagements take them to the Vienna Konzerthaus, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Brussels' Palais des Beaux Arts, New York's Carnegie Hall and the Chatelet in Paris and to festivals including Luberon, Istanbul, Trondheim, Lausanne, Salzburg and the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade. In the UK they regularly appear at the Bath, Petworth, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, Perth and Edinburgh festivals and at Wigmore Hall where they were resident Quartet from 2001 to 2006. More info at : www.emiclassics.com/artists.php