Sage Gateshead

Mary began her career as a choral scholar at Clare College, Cambridge. She then trained at the Royal College of Music, and the Royal Northern College of Music and where she won the Contemporary Music Prize and the national Wagner Society award for her performance of the ‘Immolation Scene’ from Götterdämmerung. She has recorded with the Cambridge Singers and performed from Los Angeles to St Petersburg. She taught at Lancaster University, from where she received an MMus with distinction. Until summer 2017 she was a Senior Lecturer in Singing at the University of Cumbria. She is now a freelance singing teacher and performer, and she continues to study singing with Victoria Barbé.

Teaches on: Centre for Advanced Training

Rachel was a member of the ensemble for the Estonian National Opera in Tallinn. Originally from the north east she now is a freelance soloist and singing teacher. She has performed in opera houses and festivals in Russia, the Baltic states, Scandinavia, the Balkans, as well as Ireland and the UK, performing a range of works from new compositions to standard Opera and Oratorio repertoire. Some of the highlights were a recording of Wagner’s Tannhauser for German TV, Gounod’s Faust in Moscow, Tippett’s Child of Our Time for Hexham Abbey, recording a meditation CD for a private firm in the US, Hindemith’s Cardillac in Riga and a few appearances for the NEPAC ‘Geordie’ Last Night of the Proms. Locally she is a regular soloist for the Berwick Opera Festival, Rocket Opera and Carluccios Opera Nights.

Teaches on: Centre for Advanced Training

Hannah received a first in performance and the Sir Geraint Evans award while at Cardiff University, continuing her studies over the years with a variety of singers at a very high level, bringing their ideas and expertise into her own teaching. Having performed professionally in musical theatre and as a classical soprano, she focuses on helping teenagers fully connect with their voice and its production, and has undertaken courses in the Estill model, Accent Method and Primal Voice, and with other voice specialists, such as Dane Chalfin, that enhance that pedagogy. She sings with 2016 Choir of the Year “Voices of Hope”.

Teaches on: Centre for Advanced Training

Hannah specialises in commercial, jazz and popular music and teaching vocal technique. After graduating in 2005 she began performing professionally and working as a peripatetic teacher. Since 2012 has been actively training in vocal pedagogy, completing a number of courses in the Estill model. She is the Centre for Advanced Training’s specialist vocal teacher in pop, contemporary and jazz styles and is Programme Leader and tutor on the Further Education course in popular music that runs at Sage Gateshead and was a tutor on the Community Music Degree programme. She is an active performer, singing with a number of function bands as well as her own female a cappella quartet “The Shoeshop Quartet”.

Teaches on: Centre for Advanced Training