James Atkinson, baritone
James Atkinson is a graduate of the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Alison Wells. He is a BBC New Generation Artist, and the winner of the Royal Over-Seas League Singers Prize 2022, the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards 2018 and the Somerset Song Prize 2019.
Operatic roles include Masetto Don Giovanni (Welsh National Opera), Orest Elektra (Tokyo Symphony Orchestra), Belcore L’elisir d’amore (Wild Arts), Papageno Die Zauberflöte and Aeneas Dido and Aeneas (Hurn Court Opera). In 2024, James returns to WNO as Guglielmo in Cosí fan tutte.
Concert performances include Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast (Tokyo Symphony Orchestra), Haydn The Creation (Montreal Symphony Orchestra), Faure’s Requiem (Orchestre de la Suisse Romande) and Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music (London Philharmonic Orchestra).
James has given recitals at Oxford Lieder, Wigmore Hall, Beethovenfest Bonn, the Lammermuir Festival, the Gower Festival, the Aldeburgh Festival, the North Norfolk Music Festival and the Ludlow English Song Weekend.
Website: jamesatkinsonbaritone.com
Caroline Taylor, soprano
British soprano Caroline Taylor graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music with Distinction, where she won the Joyce and Michael Kennedy Strauss Award and was a finalist in the prestigious Gold Medal. A keen performer of Czech repertoire, she won the 2021 Emmy Destinn Award for Czech Opera and Song and the 2023 Off West End Opera Performance Award with Hampstead Garden Opera for Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, in which she played the title role.
Praised for her “glittering soprano” (The Times), Caroline has recently enjoyed success as La Musica in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo at Longborough Festival Opera, alongside solo performances at Wigmore Hall and Oxford International Song Festival, where she is a 2022-2024 Young Artist. Opera credits include Asteria/Tamerlano with Cambridge Handel Opera, Adina/The Elixir of Love (Duchy Opera) and Kate/The Yeomen of the Guard at the Grange Festival, where Caroline also jumped in to sing Asteria to considerable acclaim. Concert highlights include Britten’s Les Illuminations (Northern Ballet Sinfonia) and Mahler’s 8th Symphony at the Bridgewater Hall, broadcast on BBC Radio 3. She is a City Music Foundation Artist.
website: www.carolinetaylorsoprano.com
Harriet Goodwin, mezzo
Harriet Goodwin read English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford before training as a postgraduate singer at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she studied with Nicholas Powell and received a scholarship from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust.
She has sung and toured with The Sixteen and The Monteverdi Choir, and was nominated for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.
As a concert artist, Harriet has performed at numerous venues throughout the country, including Cadogan Hall (Mozart’s Requiem), St John’s, Smith Square (Monteverdi’s Vespers)and Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (Mozart’s Requiem). She has also appeared at the English Haydn Festival.
Harriet has four children and is the author of several award-winning children’s books, most notably The Boy Who Fell Down Exit 43, which was shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award in 2010.
Market Drayton Choral Society 