The Choir

The choir is made up of the following members, who are mostly graduates of Oxford or Cambridge Universities:

Helen Ashby Soprano		Helen has recently graduated in music from Cambridge University, where she was a choral scholar at Gonville and Caius College. During her time at University she took part in a large number of concerts, both as a chorus member and as a soloist in such works as Mozart's Requiem and Handel's Messiah. She is also a member of Stile Antico and Commotio.
Kate Ashby Soprano		Kate started her singing career as a girl in the Hildegard Choir in Oxford. From there she joined Trinity College Chapel Choir in Cambridge as a choral scholar. With the choir she toured India, the USA and Europe and made three commercial recordings. While at Cambridge she undertook many sole roles including the part of Virtue in a staged performance of Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea and a concert of Bach Cantatas, as well as a solo recital of music by Henry Purcell. She is also a founder member of the Oxford based Early Music group Stile Antico.
Jenny Bacon Soprano		Jenny graduated in music from Somerville College in the summer of 2001. She has just started studying singing at a post-graduate level at the Royal Academy of Music with Penny Mackay and Jonathan Papp. During her time in Oxford, Jenny has given a number of solo recitals, as well as singing in numerous productions and concerts. She has taken solo roles in Dido and Aeneus, Venus and Adonis and Fauré's and Duruflé's Requiems. She is soprano soloist for Bach Collegium Oxford. She has sung with many choirs, and has toured Germany with the Royal Academy of Music Chamber Choir. Forthcoming engagements include extracts form Gluck's opera Paris and Helena, and a performance of Berio's Agnus, both at the Royal Academy of Music. Jenny is supported by the Michael James Music Trust.
Alison Coldstream Mezzo-Soprano		Alison (aka Brady) launched her singing career as Mrs Noah in Wesley Memorial Church at the age of 10. A few years on, after singing in all the Durham University choirs she could find, she joined the Clerkes of Oxenford in the early 1980s. She was subsequently a member of the Oxford Camerata and Schola Cantorum of Oxford, and also of several London church choirs. Nowadays, as well as Gradualia, she sings with the newly-founded Convivio! and the Brabant Ensemble. She is also currently a member of Worcester College Chapel Choir, the choir of St Mary Magdalen, and the Oxford Oratory Choir. She does not have singing lessons on the grounds that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.
Emma Ashby Alto		Emma Ashby was born in Leicester in 1984 and is currently on a gap year.. She has sung from an early age with such choirs as The Hildegard Choir who have featured on television in the semi-finals of Sainsbury’s Choir of the Year, and the Oxford Arcadian singers. Currently, Emma sings with the Choir of St Mary Magdalen’s Church, Oxford, and the early music ensembles Stile Antico and Voces Angelicae. She also plays the 'cello.
Patrick Gilday Tenor		Patrick began his musical education at the age of seven, when he was first introduced to the clarinet. By the age of sixteen he had gained his first undergraduate diploma in performance, and was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music in 2002. He began singing at the age of eleven as a treble with local choirs, and later returned to working with local groups as a tenor and countertenor soloist. On coming up to Jesus College Oxford he joined various choirs and has deputised with the majority of the university's chapel and church choirs. He currently sings as an alto Academical Clerk at Christ Church Cathedral in addition to working as a tenor with Oxford Baroque soloists and Gradualia.
Henry Howard Tenor		Henry Howard was born in 1972 and sang as a treble in Eton College Chapel Choir, having been bribed into it by the promise of singing Mahler's Third under Tennstedt. He is unsure by what tortuous paths he has ended up singing Cornysh one-to-a-part. From 1991-5 he was an academical clerk at Magdalen College, Oxford, which earned him his Hollywood debut as an extra in "Shadowlands", starring alongside Sir Anthony Hopkins. He also sang regularly with the Rodolfus choir, including several performances and recordings at Douai. Since 2000 he has been reading for a doctorate in art history at Magdalen, and is a member of numerous groups in Oxford including Schola Cantorum. He'd like to sing some more Mahler some day.
Paul Thomas Baritone		Paul Thomas was born in 1980 and sang as a treble in York Minster Choir under Philip Moore from 1988 to 1993. Since arriving in Oxford 1998 to study chemistry, he has sung for numerous choirs and vocal ensembles including Schola Cantorum, Commotio and the Choir of St Mary Magdalen’s Church. He has also given a number of successful recitals in Christ Church Cathedral, including Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel, and excerpts from Opera and Oratorio. He has sung in London with Voces Sacrae, and continues to sing occasionally in York Minster. Solo work includes Duruflé's Requiem with several Oxford choirs, and also Stainer’s Crucifixion and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. Recent engagements include Messiah in Southgate Church, London. He has studied with Michael de Costa and Nicholas Clapton. On the organ, Paul has provided music for numerous churches in the York area, and originally studied with John Scott Whiteley.
Paul Hedley Bass		Paul is an ex-choral scholar and ex-lay-clerk of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he is now working on a DPhil in theoretical linguistics. He has been singing around Oxford for several years now, both chorally and in solo recitals, as well as being involved in several groups as director. His repertoire is wide ranging; from early chant and polyphony to contemporary French and English art song. His favourite colour is dark green.
Francis Knights Director		Francis Knights was born in St John’s, Newfoundland in 1963, and educated at Royal Holloway College, University of London, graduating with a first-class degree in music. A year as a lay clerk at Portsmouth Cathedral was followed by postgraduate research into Elizabethan music manuscripts at Magdalen College, Oxford where he was also an academical clerk in the chapel choir. After a year of teaching at Oxford University, he was appointed Ida Carroll Research Fellow at the Royal Northern College of Music, then worked at the BBC and as a magazine editor before moving to the record industry as a specialist early music discographer. Now based in Bury St. Edmund's, he divides his time between working in music publishing and directing a number of vocal and instrumental ensembles.. His numerous publications include articles on cathedral music, restoration manuscript sources, performance practice and organology, and he directs several other Oxford-based ensembles, including Voces Angelicae, Le Rossignol and Bach Collegium Oxford.