The popular German baritone has enjoyed an outstanding career with tremendous success in the Lieder repertoire and in larger works for the concert hall, as well as in operatic roles for lyric baritone. Here he turns his attention to younger singers, to whom he can offer insights learned over decades of experience.

Andrew Woodmansey

​Andrew Woodmansey is studying with Neil Baker at Trinity Laban, supported by the Elliott Rosenblatt Memorial Scholarship, the Kathleen Creed Scholarship, and the Williams and Prowdes Trusts. He is a contemporary music specialist, having performed numerous world and UK Opera premières, including works by Michael Gordon, Libby Larsen, and Harvey Brough, as well as many song and oratorio premières. Other roles and solos have included Tamino and Monostatos in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Spoletta in Puccini’s Tosca, and solos in Haydn’s The Creation, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Brahms’s Liebeslieder-Walzer and Bach’s St John Passion. He has appeared at venues such as Cadogan Hall, the Minack Theatre, Hoxton Hall, Blackheath Halls, and the Playground Theatre. This year, Andrew Woodmansey will be playing Frederic in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance with Cardiff Opera and joining the Longborough Festival Chorus for their production of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.

Sam Hird

​Sam is a Master’s student at the Royal College of Music, where he studies with Peter Savidge and Caroline Dowdle. In March, he took on the role of Danilo in Léhar’s Die lustige Witwe. Earlier in February, he was awarded First Place and the Audience Vote at the Clonter Opera Prize. He was joint winner of the Prix Thierry Mermod vocal award at the 2023 Verbier Festival. Other recent engagements include Respighi’s La Bella Dormente nel Bosco, Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni Tenorio (both RCM productions), Christus in Bach's St John Passion with Milton Keynes Chorale, and as a Rising Star at the Shipston Song Festival. Sam Hird is a Samling Artist, and is generously supported by the Josephine Baker Trust and the Richard Silver Scholarship.

Manon Ogwen Parry

​Welsh Soprano Manon Ogwen Parry is studying at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, with vocal teacher Marilyn Rees and coach Bretton Brown. She holds The Michael Bryant Bursary Scholarship as well as The Sydney Perry Foundation scholarship. She has performed as a soloist at Wigmore Hall and at the Barbican. In 2019, she won the Kathleen Ferrier Junior Scholarship. In November last year, Manon Ogwen Parry was a featured soloist as part of BBC Radio 3’s Immersions concert series celebrating the composer George Walker. More recently, she was awarded first prize in the Susan Longfield Competition. Last summer, she studied at the prestigious Franz Schubert Institute, with a full scholarship, after being nominated to represent Guildhall. There she studied with Helmut Deutsch, Wolfgram Reiger, Elly Ameling, Roger Vignoles and Julius Drake. This January, she made her debut recital at Carnegie Hall New York.

Sebastian Hill

​Sebastian Hill is a recent graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford and is a current scholarship holder at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He is supported by the H R Taylor Trust and The Countess of Munster Trust, and studies with David Pollard. Solo highlights include Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin at the Oxford Festival of the Arts, the Evangelist in Bach's St John Passion for Oxford Bach Soloists, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Handel's Messiah at Birmingham Symphony Hall with Ex Cathedra, Mozart's Requiem at St John's Smith Square, and Monteverdi’s Vespers. Sebastian Hill was awarded first prize in the Patricia Routledge English Song Competition in June 2023. Forthcoming engagements include appearances as the Evangelist with Worcester Cathedral Choir and the Choir of New College, Oxford, and a performance in Winchester College Chapel.