Baseless Fabric Theatre is proud to announce the cast for its new Merton Opera Project.
OSKAR MCCARTHY – Jason
AYAKA TANIMOTO – Sadie
ROSEMARY HINTON – Violin
GREG HARRADINE – Guitar / Composer
OSKAR MCCARTHY
Oskar McCarthy
Oskar studied English and Modern Languages at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was a choral scholar. His operatic roles include Uberto (La serva padrona), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) and Taddeo (L’italiana in Algeri) for Pop-Up Opera, Falke (Die Fledermaus) and Binnacle/Garibdis (Ulla’s Odyssey) for OperaUpClose, Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas) for Barefoot Opera, Dottorre/Marchese (La traviata), Escamillo (CarMen) and Orest (Elektra) for Secret Opera, Angelotti (Tosca) and Bello (La fanciulla del west) for Midsummer Opera, Trinity Moses (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny) for King’s Opera, and Arsamenes (Serse) and Edmund Bertram (Jonathan Dove’s Mansfield Park) for Hampstead Garden Opera. He will perform Leporello for Midsummer Opera in April 2016. Recital work includes the UK premiere of Schoeck’s Lebendig Begraben and Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder for the London Month of the Dead and the world premiere of John Whittaker’s Shakespeare Songs for Opera Anywhere. Oskar is a core company member of ERRATICA, an ensemble with whom he trains and devises innovative cross-genre work, and he is actively involved in actor-musician projects, both as a horn player and singer. Oskar’s ongoing interest in broadening his skillset as a performer has led him to taking masterclasses in clowning at The Comedy School, and attending Jonathan Kay’s Nomadic Academy for Fools. www.oskarmccarthy.com
AYAKA TANIMOTO
Ayaka Tanimoto
Ayaka Tanimoto graduated from the Royal College of Music with a Bachelor of Music (BMus Hons) in 2009 and a Masters in Vocal Performance (MPerf) in 2011. Having trained extensively under Margaret Cable and Patricia Rozario OBE, Ayaka’s studies were supported in by the Okada Cultural Foundation Scholarship as well as the Mie International Exchange Foundation Scholarship (Japan). She then continued her training as a Scholar at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Alexander Gibson Opera School where she sang the main role of Sesto in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito.
Ayaka has won numerous awards in Japan and the UK including the 1st prize at the 3rd International Ernest Bloch Competition in London. To date, Ayaka has taken to the opera stage many times, singing 2nd boy and 2nd Lady in Mozart’s Magic Flute (Longborough Festival Opera & LFO Tour), Iolanthe in G&S’s Iolanthe (Brent Opera), covering Darabella in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte (Opera de Baugé), Poppet in Benjamin Britten’s Paul Bunyan (British Youth Opera), Flora Bervoix in Verdi’s La Traviata (Opera Lyrica), Suzuki in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (Bury Court Opera/Grimeborn Festival), and Chorus for Opera Holland Park.
Ayaka’s future engagements include, singing Suzuki in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (Bury Court Opera and Secret Opera) and Chorus for Opera Holland Park. ayakatanimoto.com
ROSEMARY HINTON
Rosemary Hinton
Rosemary is a London based violinist born in Ipswich 1993. She began the violin at the age of 6 and became involved with many youth programmes and orchestras throughout her childhood. Perhaps the most notable of these, is her former membership with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain with which she had the opportunity to lead in concerts at the BBC Proms for two years consecutively.
Rosemary attended the Junior Guildhall School of Music and Drama Junior Department every weekend for six years, before moving to Manchester in order to study at the prestigious music institution Chetham’s School of Music where she completed her ‘A’ levels. Rosemary has recently graduated from the Royal Academy of Music with a 1st Class BMus (hons) in violin performance and since then has worked as a free-lance violinist with professional orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at many major concert venues and recording studios around the country.
Alongside professional orchestral playing, Rosemary plays with a variety of other free-lance ensembles in London as well as in bands for musicals. Most recently Rosemary has been part of the band for a production of the opera ‘Carmen’ by Bizet with the opera company Opera Up Close as well as an iconic in-the-round production of ‘Madame Butterfly’ by Puccini at the Royal Albert Hall.
In contrast to a predominantly classical career, Rosemary regularly plays with the Electric String Trio ‘Silken Strings’ and recently performed alongside pop artist Kylie Minogue.
Rosemary is the 1st violinist in the ‘Stella Quartet’ (formed 2011) that currently hold a fellowship with the Open Academy department at the Royal Academy of Music in collaboration with Wigmore Hall Learning. The quartet are heavily involved with educational projects and outreach workshops as well as perform regularly both in the UK and abroad.
Alongside a busy performing career, Rosemary is a peripatetic violin teacher at Ipswich High School for Girls as well as a private violin teacher in London. She is also a chamber music coach with the Cambridge Suzuki Young Musicians.
GREG HARRADINE
Greg Harradine
Greg has an MMus Composing for Film & TV from Kingston University and a BMus Music Technology (Hons), First Class, also from Kingston. Since graduating from his MMus in 2010 he has been a freelance composer and musician working in London and around the UK. In 2014 he was composer-in-residence at Soho Theatre, helping to develop several plays and musicals including I Kiss Your Heart which involved setting the poetry of Dylan Thomas to music with Grammy Award-winning singer Lady Rizo. Other theatre companies he has composed for recently include Camisado Club, Look Left Look Right, Whispering Beasts, Theatre Uncut and the Young Vic.
Recent commissions include King Mackerel, a new community opera for the inaugural Swanage Fish Festival, and two pieces commemorating the centenary of WW1: By Your Side for the Military Wives Choirs and Letters to the Frontline for Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre.
He was a finalist in the Royal Shakespeare Company 2015 Songwriting Competition and a judge for the 2015 Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer Award. He performs regularly on piano and guitar as an accompanist for choirs and singers.
Greg received the 2014 Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer Award, resulting in a year’s residency at Soho Theatre. He was composer and pianist for By Moonlight Theatre when they won the Best Theatre Award at the Brighton Fringe Festival in 2012 for their production of East by Stephen Berkoff.
