Janet Todd (soprano)
Janet Todd is a young Melbourne Soprano. She completed her Bachelor of Music at VCA in 2009. Janet received runner up in the Herald Sun Aria in 2009. In 2010, she won the Opera Foundation Australia AIMS Award and attended American Institute of Musical Studies Summer School in Graz, Austria. She was the recipient of a Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust Scholarship for 2010 and 2011. Janet recently made her debut with Victorian Opera as ‘Pamina’ in The Magic Flute. She has also been involved in Victorian Youth Opera productions including ‘Noye’s Fludde’, ‘The Snow Queen’ and Lauretta in their workshop program of Puccini’s ‘Gianni Schicchi’. Janet performed in ‘Love and the Art of War’ as part of the Utzon Music Series. She understudied the role of Frasquita in ‘Carmen’ and recently performed as ‘Cindy’ in CONTACT! as part of the Carnegie 18 series. For Victorian Opera in 2011, Janet will be performing ‘Liesgen’ in Bach’s Coffee Cantata in the Baroque Triple Bill and will be singing the role of ‘Marsinah’ in Kismet with the Production Company in August. In June she will be singing the soprano solo in Faure’s Requiem for the Australian Ballet’s ‘Elegy’.
Jessica Foot - Oboe
Jessica Foot began the oboe with Sue Taylor at the age of 10, and has to date enjoyed a varied and stimulating path as a performer in a variety of musical contexts. Growing up in Melbourne, she was a student in the specialist music program of Blackburn High School and took oboe lessons with Anne Gilby. She completed a Bachelor of Music Performance at the Victorian College of the Arts with Eve Newsome in 2004, receiving the Friends of the VCA Encouragement award. During this time she was winner of the Melbourne Youth Orchestra concerto competition, performing the oboe concerto of Joseph Haydn.
Upon graduation Jessica was accepted as a full scholarship holder in the Australian National Academy of Music’s Advanced Performance Program, studying with Jeffery Crellin. During this time she appeared as a soloist with the Academy’s chamber orchestra, and as a member of the wind group Ensemble Bain Nu she was a recipient of the Musica Viva prize in the Academy’s inaugural Chamber Music competition.
In 2008 Jessica was a grand-finalist in Australia’s Young Performer of the Year Award, performing Richards Strauss’s oboe concerto with both the Tasmanian and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras. She appeared as soloist with The Queensland Orchestra in 2009, performing the Bohuslav Martinù oboe concerto. Jessica performed as principal oboist of the Australian Youth Orchestra in 2006 and 2007, and took part in the orchestra’s 2007 European tour. She has since worked casually with Orchestra Victoria and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and as principal oboist with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. As both soloist and chamber musician, she has been broadcast numerous times on 3MBS and ABC FM Radio, and with various chamber music ensembles she has appeared at the Townsville International Chamber Music Festival, the Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide Arts Festivals, und Sydney’s Aurora Festival.
Assisted by the Dorothy Fraser Travelling Scholarship, as well as funding granted by the Ian Potter Cultural Trust, Jessica relocated to Germany in 2008 for further study. In July 2010 she completed a Master of Music as student of Professor Thomas Indermühle at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe. Study in Australia and abroad has afforded her the opportunity to take lessons and master courses with acclaimed oboists including Diana Doherty, Jacques Tys, Alexei Ogrintchouk, Christian Schmitt, Stefan Schilli, Christain Wetzel, and Diethelm Jonas.
To see Jessica play: click here
Hannah Dahlenburg - Soprano
Young Melbourne soprano Hannah Dahlenburg presently studies with Brian Hansford at the Faculty of the VCA and Music. With a repertoire spanning five centuries of music, Hannah is a versatile and experienced performer; in solo recital, for concert and liturgical celebrations, corporate, private and public events.
Forays into opera have included the roles of Proserpina and La Messagiera in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and Diane in Acteon by Charpentier, both presented for the Melbourne Spring Early Music Festival. Hannah was also involved in the premiere performances of Stuart Greenbaum’s Nelson in 2007.
As an ensemble singer she has been a guest artist for the newly established Nuova Capella Giulia and was for three years a scholarship holder with the renowned Choir of Trinity College (Melbourne).
Hannah has been the recipient of several awards and scholarships including an Australian Music Events Vocal Scholarship and the Claryce Mallyon Middleton Memorial Scholarship, for her studies as the most outstanding female vocalist in her class year.
In 2009 she holds the place of Maroondah Singers Memorial Solo Scholar.
Rosel Labone - Soprano
Royal Melbourne Philharmonic: RMP Aria finalist
Opera Studio Melbourne: Milly - Figatroll
Opera Studio Melbourne: Mother - Hansel and Gretel
Opera Studio Melbourne: Donna Elvira - Don Giovanni
Opera Studio melbourne: Galatea - Acis and Galatea
Gilbert and Sullivan Society(NZ): Phyllis - Iolanthe
Festival Singers(NZ): RossininStabat Mater - alto soloist
Festival Singers(NZ): Dvorak Mass in D Minor - alto soloist
NBR New Zealand Opera: Chorus member
Victoria University Wellington: Mrs Ducat - Polly
Les nuits d'ete: Concert performance (NZ)
St Paul's Cathedral Wellington: Durufle Requiem - alto soloist
Victoria University Wellington: Juno - Enchanted Island
Victoria University Wellington: Second Lady - The Magic Flute
Festival Singers (NZ): Mozart Missa Brevis - alto soloist
Victoria University Wellington: BA (English Literature)
Victoria University Wellington: B Mus (Honours, First Class)
Tim Jacques - Tenor
A student of Roger Howell and graduate of Melbourne University’s Faculty of Music, Tim has just completed his final year of study at The Opera Studio Melbourne, where he has been honing his craft as a performer. This course has seen Tim perform the roles of Narrator (Coffee Cantata), Franz (Tales of Hoffman), Monostatos (Magic Flute) and the Witch (Hansel and Gretel), Damon (Acis and Galatea), as well taking lead, ensemble and cover roles in various other Opera Studio projects.
Tim’s experience as a singer has seen him workshop and perform world premiere Opera and Musical Theatre, and has also seen him take character and chorus roles with OzOpera and Victorian Youth Opera, respectively. He has also amassed a strong level of experience on the concert platform, having performed as soloist for various choral organisations around Melbourne, taking tenor solos in works ranging from Handel to Saint-Saens.
Tim is also on staff at Lygon Music School, where he has had the privilege of teaching voice and beginner piano for the last three years to a wide variety of people, ranging from ex-wrestlers, to former professional dancers.
Nicholas Dinopoulos - Bass-Baritone
The young bass-baritone Nicholas Dinopoulos studied at the University of Melbourne with Merlyn Quaife. He presently works under the guidance of Roger Howell and is a singer of The Opera Studio Melbourne.
His operatic roles comprise Caronte / Plutone (L'Orfeo), Bartolo / Antonio (Le Nozze di Figaro), Leporello (Don Giovanni), L'Apparizione / Il Medico (Macbeth) and the title role in Cimarosa's Il Maestro di Cappella.
Nicholas' concert repertoire includes the Puccini Messa di Gloria, Dvorak Stabat Mater and Mass in D, the Mozart Requiem and Great Mass in C minor, the Fauré Requiem, Schubert Mass in G and Haydn Harmoniemesse in addition to Händel’s Messiah, Solomon and Israel in Egypt and the St. Matthew Passion, Magnificat and Mass in B minor of J.S. Bach.
Recent credits include a string of performances of Messiah touring Victoria and South Australia on two occasions with the Heidelberg Choral Society as well as the première performances of the Mary McKillop Mass by Melbourne composer Nicholas Buc for Music Glenelg in association with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra, Box Hill Chorale and the Australian Catholic University Choir.
Additionally, Nick has the pleasure of being on staff at the Australian Boys Choral Institute and working with the training groups of the Australian Boys Choir. He has also enjoyed a decade of involvement in the sphere of liturgical music at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne.
He returns to The Opera Studio Melbourne in 2011 where his place in the Performance Program is again supported by the Henkell Family Scholarship.
