The Singers
David Yardley
countertenor
David has sung with a number of highly-regarded ensembles in Australia and overseas in Cambridge, UK, both as a counter-tenor and as a baritone. He held a choral scholarship with the renowned Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge in 2003-4 (under conductor Daniel Hyde), and sang under Edward Wickham in the Cambridge Medieval Music Group also in that year. In Australia, he has sung on scholarship with the choir of St James Church, King Street, under David Drury and with the choir of St Mary’s Cathedral. He also has performed with many other Australian groups, such as the Sydney Chamber Choir, including in their recent collaboration with UK-based group The Tallis Scholars.
David also composes and arranges music in an “early-music” style. Recordings of his solo performances, and recordings of performances of his compositions as well as the sheet music for his compositions and arrangements are freely available from his personal website, www.davidyardley.net.
David Mackay
tenor
David Mackay has worked as a conductor and soloist in Australia and the United Kingdom, including work with Opera Australia, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Sydney Chamber Choir, the Sydney Chamber Orchestra, Nova Camerata, the choir of St James’ Church King Street, the choir of St Simon Zelotes Chelsea, and the Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals’ Orchestra and Choir. He was the founding music director of the Goodenough Chamber Orchestra and Voices in London, works regularly with Canberra ensembles, and is a founding member of The Pocket Score Company, Canberra’s smallest vocal ensemble. David is the Music Director of the Oriana Chorale in Canberra, and is active as a composer, particularly of works for choir and solo voice.
Paul Eldon
tenor
Paul has worked his way from treble to alto, through the tenor line down to bass before finally returning to the treble clef to sing as a tenor as Head Chorister at The Oratory School in Woodcote (UK). He arrived in Canberra in 2009 from Beijing where he sang for five years with the International Festival Chorus (IFC) under conductor Nicholas Smith.
With the IFC Paul sang in a number of China première performances including Bach St. Matthew Passion, Constance Lambert’s The Rio Grande, and the Vespers by Rachmaninov. He worked with Dame Emma Kirkby in another China first performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Notable conductors include Anne Randine-Øverby (Artistic Director, Bergen Opera, Norway), Dr Martin Ennis (Girton College, Cambridge) and Yu Long (Music Director, China Philharmonic Orchestra). While in China Paul was a founding member and Music Director of The Temporaries, Beijing’s first all-male a cappella vocal group.
He has received vocal training from Emma Kirkby and, most recently, studied under Australian Opera countertenor Tobias Cole.
Ian Blake
bass
Ian enjoys folk music, early music and electronica, and his own music often shows traces of all three: he has worked as a composer for theatre, film, chamber music, dance and public art projects, while his production and sound engineering skills have earned him a Gold Disc and an ARIA nomination.
Originally from London, Ian made his Covent Garden debut at the age of 13, but hasn’t had a gig there since: however, his subsequent career has been varied and far-ranging… mainly in the folk and world music scene with, amongst others, Pyewackett, June Tabor, Michelle Shocked, and the Mellstock Band; in venues from Alaska to Zanzibar. Since moving to Australia, Ian has toured extensively with Eric Bogle and produced two of Eric’s CDs at his Canberra studio.
Ian has produced award-winning records for children, many for the ABC: his multi-instrumental abilities and arranging skills have contributed to some classics, notably with Mike Jackson.
He works in Europe regularly, mostly with long-time collaborator Andrew Cronshaw: projects include the 2002 Contemporary Music Network tour with the Finnish show On the Shoulders of the Great Bear, and Cronshaw’s CD Ochre in which musicians from Wales, Ireland, Finland, Greece, Egypt and Syria brought their skills and traditions to English folksong.
In 2005 he received an ACT Creative Arts Fellowship and is now pursuing a PhD in composition and sound art at the Australian National University. He was recently awarded the 2006 National Folk Fellowship which will result in a live/electroacoustic piece based on material from the children’s folklore collections at the National Library, to be performed at the 2007 National Folk Festival.
Pocket Score alumni
George Brenan
tenor
George Brenan has been singing in church and chamber choirs since the age of 8, when he started training as a treble with Brisbane’s Holy Trinity, Fortitude Valley. In more recent years he has sung with the choir of St James King Street in Sydney, and St Mary’s Kangaroo Point and St John’s Cathedral in Brisbane. Also in Brisbane, he performed in a number of recordings and national broadcasts involving ensembles such as the Quodlibet Singers and Canticum, and the specialist baroque ensemble Cantilena.
He has appeared as soloist in diverse works from the chamber music repertoire, including larger works by Schütz, Buxtehude, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Britten. A relatively new arrival in Canberra, he has performed most recently with the Canberra Handel Choir. He has a particular interest in the pre-baroque, and post-20th century repertoire from north-eastern Europe and Scandinavia.