Awarded with an MBE for services to classical music in October 2020, Stephen Layton is one of the most sought-after conductors of his generation, whose ground-breaking approach has had a profound influence on choral music over the last 30 years. Often described as the finest exponent of choral music in the world today, Layton is regularly invited to work with the world’s leading choirs, orchestras and composers. His interpretations have been heard from Sydney Opera House to the Concertgebouw, from Tallinn to São Paolo, and his recordings have won or been nominated for every major international recording award. He has two Gramophone Awards and a further ten nominations, five Grammy nominations, the Diapason d’Or de l’Année in France, the Echo Klassik award in Germany, the Spanish CD compact award, and Australia’s Limelight Recording of the Year.

Founder and Director of Polyphony and Director of Holst Singers, Layton stepped down as Fellow and Director of Music at Trinity College Cambridge in the summer of 2023. His former posts include Chief Conductor of Netherlands Chamber Choir, Chief Guest Conductor of Danish National Vocal Ensemble, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of City of London Sinfonia, and Director of Music at the Temple Church, London.

Layton’s recordings have consistently broken new ground, creating a new sound world in British choral music that continues to influence and inform conductors and choirs throughout the world. Award-winning discs with Polyphony include Britten’s Sacred and Profane, James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross and Poulenc’s Gloria. In a recent Gramophone critics’ poll of the world’s 20 greatest choirs, not only was Polyphony voted second finest, but The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge also made it into the top five: confounding expectation, Layton had led a student choir into the highest ranks.

Layton guest conducts widely, working with and inspiring the world’s finest choirs and orchestras. With Britten Sinfonia, his eight highly acclaimed recordings include Handel’s Messiah (‘Best Messiah recording’ – BBC Music Magazine); with City of London Sinfonia (where Layton succeeded Richard Hickox as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor), tours included Latin America and premieres uniting cathedral choristers across Britain; and with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment he has recorded Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, B Minor Mass and St John Passion.

Layton’s interpretations of Bach and Handel have been heard with orchestras ranging from Academy of Ancient Music to the London Philharmonic and Philadelphia orchestras. Layton is also Artistic Director of the Annual Christmas Festival at St John’s Smith Square.

Layton continues to innovate, taking bold and original steps, and leading the way in the use of new technologies in choral music. Everything sung by The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge is webcast live and available to listen again online. Layton was the first in the world to webcast every single note sung in this way, laying bare the music-making without any digital editing. This searchable archive of over 4,000 musical tracks recorded live forms an invaluable resource for listeners around the world and forms a major part of his legacy to the Choir.

Australian/British soprano Samantha Clarke was the winner of the 2019 Guildhall Gold Medal and prize winner in the 2019 Grange International Festival Singing Competition. Samantha studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, as a Sir John Fisher Foundation and Independent Opera Scholar, under the tutelage of Mary Plazas. She is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama Opera School as a Baroness de Turckheim Scholar, Help Musicians, Tait Memorial and Countess of Munster Trust Scholar and studied with Yvonne Kenny.

In addition to the 2019 Guildhall Gold Medal, Samantha is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Leverhulme Royal Northern College of Music Award, the Dame Eva Turner Award and the Michael and Joyce Kennedy Award for the singing of Strauss.

In the 2025/26 season Samantha returns to Opera Australia as Euridice (Orfeo ed Euridice), and is Artist in Residence with the West Australian Opera where she will make role debuts as Juliette (Roméo et Juliette) and Tatyana (Eugene Onegin). Her concert engagements include The Creation with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra/Eivind Aadland and on tour with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Václav Luks, Waldvogel in concert performances of Siegfried with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra/Simone Young, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Carter and Messiah with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Sofi Jeannin. Later in 2026, she performs Mozart’s Requiem, Mendelssohn's Elijah and Woglinde (Götterdämmerung) in concert with Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Her operatic roles include: Violetta (La traviata), Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte), Helena (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Countess (Le Nozze di Figaro), Anne Trulove (The Rake’s Progress), The Governess (The Turn of the Screw) and the title role in Theodora.

Recent and future engagements include Countess (Le nozze di Figaro) at Garsington, Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte) with English National Opera, the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy in Japan, Grange Festival and Opera Queensland, Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare) and Theodora for Pinchgut Opera, Woglinde (Das Rheingold), Marzelline (Fidelio) and Mendelssohn’s (Midsummer Night’s Dream) with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Simone Young, Violetta (La traviata) with The Grange Festival, Opera Australia and West Australian Opera, a US tour with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, Messiah and War Requiem with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 in Tasmania and Britten’s Les Illuminations with Western Australia Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner.

Samantha features on the Resonus label’s recording Samuel Barber: The Complete Songs with accompanist Dylan Perez.

Mezzo-soprano Ashlyn Tymms is in demand across Australia for her compelling operatic portrayals and expressive concert performances. A graduate of the Royal College of Music in London, where she studied as a HF Music Scholar and completed her Master of Vocal Performance with Distinction, she was also awarded the Outstanding Australian Musician Award by the Royal Over-Seas League.

Ashlyn has a particularly strong association with West Australian Opera, where she has performed the title role in Carmen, Ježibaba in Rusalka, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Dido in Dido and Aeneas, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel, Flora in La traviata, Emilia in Otello, and Lapák and Pásková in The Cunning Little Vixen. She made her Opera Australia mainstage debut as Dorothée in Cinderella and returns in 2025 to reprise Ježibaba in Rusalka.

A sought-after concert soloist, Ashlyn has frequently appeared with the major Australian state orchestras. Her repertoire spans works such as Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 and Symphony No. 3, Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, and Beethoven’s Ninth with the Melbourne, Queensland and Canberra Symphony Orchestras. She performed Bach’s St John Passion with the Melbourne Symphony; Handel’s Messiah with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs (marking her Sydney Opera House debut); and Verdi’s Requiem at the Sydney Town Hall.

Ashlyn is a committed interpreter of contemporary and chamber music, premiering Melody Eötvös’s Hope. Fear. Anything. and Katy Abbott’s Splitting the Ambivalence with the Flinders Quartet at Melbourne Recital Centre. She has taken on numerous contemporary operatic roles, among them the Stewardess in Jonathan Dove’s Flight for State Opera South Australia, Judith in the world premiere of The Two Sisters with Tête à Tête Opera in the UK, and Fanny Price in Dove’s Mansfield Park for New Zealand Opera.

Additional career highlights include performing Rosimonda in Handel’s Faramondo at the London Handel Festival, touring South Korea in recital with the London Cello Orchestra, and appearing in Japan with Opera Australia. She also sang in Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music at Buckingham Palace in a gala hosted by The Prince of Wales.

In 2025, Ashlyn appears with the Melbourne, Canberra, Christchurch and Willoughby Symphony Orchestras, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Perth Symphonic Chorus, Pinchgut Opera, and the Adelaide Baroque Orchestra.

Tenor Andrew Goodwin has appeared with opera companies in Europe, the UK, Asia and Australia, including the Bolshoi Opera, Gran Theatre Liceu Barcelona, Teatro Real Madrid, La Scala Milan, Opera Australia, Pinchgut Opera and Sydney Chamber Opera.

On the concert platform he has toured with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra with Maestro Temirkanov, performed with the Sydney, Melbourne, West Australian, Queensland, Tasmanian and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, and has given recitals with pianist Daniel de Borah at the Wigmore Hall, and at the Oxford Lieder, Port Fairy, Huntington, Coriole, Bendigo, Huntington and Canberra International Music Festivals.

Andrew’s extensive operatic experience has seen him perform on some of the world’s great stages including the Bolshoi Moscow, La Scala Milan, Liceu Barcelona, Teatro Real Madrid, National Centre for the Performing Arts Beijing and the Sydney Opera House.

Andrew’s roles for Opera Australia include Fenton (Falstaff), Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Novice (Billy Budd), Janek (The Makropulos Affair) and Tamino (Die Zauberflöte). He has also sung Tamino and Alfred (Die Fledermaus) and Lensky (Eugene Onegin) at the Bolshoi, with which he toured extensively throughout Europe and Asia. Further international appearances have been as Silvio in Martin Y Soler’s L’Arbore di Diana (Barcelona), as Gomatz in Mozart’s Zaide with The Classical Opera Company, London and as Avvakum in the world premiere of Rodion Shchedrin’s Boyarina Morozova at the Moscow State Conservatory.

Closer to home Andrew has performed the title role in Stravinky’s The Rake’s Progress with Auckland Philharmonia and Egeo (Giasone), Florival (L’amant jaloux), Orpheus (L’anima del filosofo) and the title role in Artaxerxes (Hasse) for Pinchgut Opera.

Andrew returns to Adelaide Festival this year in the role of The Groom (Innocence); to West Australian Symphony in the role of Alfred (Die Fledermaus), Asher Fisch conducting, and the world premiere of Stanhope’s Mahāsāgar; and to the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra as Gastone (La Traviata). Further concert performances will see him return to Sydney Philharmonia Choirs in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, Adelaide Symphony in Mozart’s Requiem, Sydney Chamber Choir in Bach’s B minor mass, and to Brisbane Chamber Choir and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in Messiah. Andrew will also feature at the Four Winds Easter Festival at Bermagui, at Opera in the Arboretum, Pearl Beach, and again lead a tour for Hayllar Music Tours.

Most recently, Andrew returned to the opera stage and Adelaide Festival as Renaud in Stravinsky’s The Fox for the Festival’s presentation of The Nightingale and other fables; to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as the Narr in Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder with Simone Young conducting, and to the Queensland, West Australian and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras in Mozart’s Requiem. He has also been heard in Carmina Burana with Melbourne Symphony (also in Singapore), Messiah with Adelaide Symphony, St. Matthew Passion with Monash University Orchestra and Choir, Elijah with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and numerous Festival appearances and recitals around the country.

Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 has featured prominently in Andrew Goodwin’s diary recently with performances in Germany with the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. He has also returned to the Melbourne Bach Choir (Evangelist, St John Passion, and Messiah), The Canberra International and Sanguine Estate Music Festivals and to Sydney Philharmonia Choirs for Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. He performed Britten’s War Requiem as part of Brisbane Festival, Messiah with Melbourne Symphony and both Britten’s Serenade for Tenor and Horn, and Mime (Das Rheingold), in a role debut, with the Sydney Symphony.

Andrew’s busy 2022 schedule saw him tour and record with the Australian Vocal Ensemble, of which he was a founding member, return to both Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and the Queensland Symphony for Mozart Requiem, to the Melbourne Bach Choir as the Evangelist in the St. Matthew Passion, to the Canberra International Music Festival (and the Australian Haydn Ensemble) for Haydn’s Creation, to the Canberra and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras for Messiah (the latter to perform Sir Andrew Davis’ version conducted by Sir Andrew himself), and to the Sanguine Estate and Albury Chamber Music Festivals. Andrew also continued his association with Hayllar Music Tours, appearing in three of their chamber music tours, both in Australia and in New Zealand.

Other prominent recent engagements include Janik in the Sydney Chamber Opera production for Sydney Festival of Diary of one who disappeared (Janáček), his role debut as Lysander in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Adelaide Festival, Jacquino (Fidelio) with West Australian Symphony, Nadir (The Pearlfishers) for State Opera South Australia, St. John Passion and Haydn’s Creation with Melbourne Bach Choir, Carmina Burana with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Mozart’s Requiem with Melbourne Symphony, Messiah with the Queensland and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras, as well as the premiere of Richard Mill’s new oratorio, Nativity, with the Adelaide Symphony.

Andrew’s recordings include Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin and When yesterday we met (songs of Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky) with Daniel de Borah for ABC Classic, and Artaxerxes (Hasse), Giasone (Cavalli), L’ámant jaloux (Gretry) and L’anima del filosofo (Haydn) with Pinchgut Opera.

Born in Sydney, Andrew studied voice at the St. Petersburg Conservatory under the direction of Professor Lev Morozov, graduating with a Bachelor of Music. He has also studied with Robert Dean in the UK. During his studies Andrew won a number of awards and scholarships including the Tait Memorial Trust Scholarship, 2nd place in the Yelena Obraztsova Singing Competition in St. Petersburg; the Martin Bequest Travelling Scholarship; the Sir Robert Askin Operatic Travelling Scholarship; and the Australian Opera Auditions Committee Joan Sutherland Richard Bonynge Scholarship. He has also received support from the Australian Music Foundation and ARS Musica Australis.

Award-winning Australian baritone Simon Meadows enjoys a busy opera and concert career throughout Europe, Asia and Australasia.

Most recently, he has sung the title role in Gianni Schicchi, Michele in Il tabarro and Telramund in Lohengrin for Opera Australia, Michele for Victorian Opera and Alberich (Der Ring des Nibelungen) for Melbourne Opera.

He returns to Opera Australia in 2025 in the title role in Il barbiere di Siviglia and appears as The High Priest in Samson et Dalila for Melbourne Opera.

Previously for Victorian Opera, he sang Priam in Simon Bruckhard’s Cassandra, Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, Orest’s Tutor in Elektra, First Nazarene in Salome and Jimmy in Stuart Greenbaum’s The Parrot Factory. Simon was the baritone soloist both for the world premiere of Richard Mills’ song cycle In Tempore Bello and in Fauré’s Requiem (in collaboration with the Australian Ballet).

For Melbourne Opera, Simon has performed the title roles in Macbeth and The Barber of Seville, Alberich in Das Rheingold and Siegfried, Faninal in Der Rosenkavalier, Escamillo in Carmen, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte and many others.

Simon’s roles for other companies include Germont (La traviata), Alfio/Tonio in Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci and Ibn Hakia in Iolanta (West Australian Opera), Macbeth (Kennet Opera), Villequier in Le roi malgre lui (Wexford Festival Opera), Escamillo in Carmen and Sonora in La fanciulla del West (Opera Up Close), Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia (Lyric Opera Melbourne), Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Co-Opera), Marcello in La bohème (Opera Siam, Thailand), Creon in Milhaud’s Medea (Lost and Found, WA) and the leading role of Rupert Brooke in Nicholas Vines’ The Hive (Chamber Made Opera).

A celebrated concert artist, Simon has taken the bass solos in Schubert’s Mass in G (Wexford, Ireland), Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem (Romsey Abbey, UK and Melbourne Symphony), Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Mozart’s Requiem (Sydney Philharmonia), Carmina Burana and A Sea Symphony (Royal Melbourne Philharmonic), Judas Maccabaeus (Heidelberg Choral Society), The Creation (St James’s Church, Sydney), Serenade to Music (Victorian Opera), and Kindertotenlieder, Messiah and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia (Monash Symphony). He made his German début singing Frank Martin’s In terra pax at Berlin’s Heilige Kreuz Kirche.

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs is Australia’s premier choral organisation. Since it was founded in 1920, SPC has brought people together through music, and for over five decades, it has been the heartbeat of choral performance at the Sydney Opera House.

Led by Artistic and Music Director Brett Weymark OAM and Associate Music Director Dr Elizabeth Scott, and with more than 2,000 singers across six ensembles, SPC brings the full power of the human voice to dynamic music making. From blockbuster choral classics like Carmina Burana or the Verdi Requiem, to the soaring soundtracks of films such as Gladiator, heartwarming musical theatre, and world premieres by leading Australian composers.

Each year, SPC performs approximately 50 performances across Sydney and beyond, collaborating with top-tier orchestras, soloists and conductors, performing regularly with many of Australia’s most prominent arts companies and festivals. SPC has performed in the Sydney Opera House, Hamer Hall Melbourne, the Singapore National Football Stadium, Westminster Abbey, the Tokyo Dome and the Royal Albert Hall. Highlights over the years have included the opening of the Sydney Opera House, the Sydney and Nagano Olympic Games and being the first Australian choir to perform at the BBC Proms. SPC is also proud to have been the choir of choice for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra since 1936.

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs concerts celebrate diversity – of voices, of stories, and of sound – with programs that allow singers and audiences to connect with an exhilarating range of music in languages from English to Gadigal, keeping things fresh with premieres, commissions and new interpretations of beloved classics.