CERYS JONES studied at the Royal Academy of Music and also on the English National Opera performance course for singers.

Operatic roles performed include: Mrs Grose, The Turn of The Screw, Opera East Productions and also with the Cambridge Opera Players for the 2001 Cambridge Britten Festival; Agatha, On Thee We Feed, ENO Baylis; Angelina, la Cenerentola, Opera Brava and also for First Act and Opera East Productions; Nancy, Albert Herring, Opera East Productions; Popova, The Bear, Opera Minima; Dido, Dido and Aeneas, Matron, The Ephesian Matron both for the University of Kent Summer Opera; and Dido for Burghley Opera; Lucretia, The Rape of Lucretia, Opera East Productions; Mrs Noye, Noye’s Fludde The Dragon School; Angelina, La Cenerentola, La Fenice, Venice; Theatre du Passage, Neuchâtel, Festival Des Yvelines, Paris; The British Embassy, Moscow; Domaine Des Vaux Opera Festival, Jersey; Festival de la Vézère, Brive; Les Azuriales Opera Festival, St Jean Cap Ferrat; Festival de l’orne; Second Lady, Die Zauberflöte and Olga, Eugene Onegin for Diva Opera. Most recent and ongoing performances include; Nancy Albert Herring for the Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme as part of the Britten festival at the Snape Matltings Concert Hall, supported by the Peter Pears Birthday fund and a European tour of Il Barbiere di Siviglia as Rosina, for Diva Opera.

Concert and Oratorio performances include; Mozart’s Requiem Wells Cathedral, Guernsey Choral Workshop, Purcell’s Come Ye Sons of Art, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Handel’s Messiah, Judas Maccabaeus, Rossini and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, The Angel, The Dream of Gerontius, Victoria Rooms, Bristol, Rossini’s Petite Messe Sollennelle, Beethoven’s ninth symphony with the Bardi Orchestra in Leicester’s Demontfort Hall and Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum for the 150 th anniversary of Bradford Choral Society conducted by John Rutter. Cerys recently participated in an English Song Recital, as part of the Britten Song Course with Philip Langridge, Britten-Pears Young Artists, 'Unlocking Mignon' workshop and concert based on Goethe’s Faust at the Royal Academy of Music also, a recital for the opening of an exhibition of drawings by Sir Kyffin Williams and other welsh artists at the Thackeray Gallery in London. Cerys will perform a recital of Britten’s Charm of lullabies at Reading University later this autumn.

Education work includes; The Barber of Seville, education project as Rosina for ENO Baylis, devising and participating in a performance for children with special needs, Opera North’s 2003 song writing project, working as a singer and animateur and also Peter and the Wolfeducation project for Welsh National Opera

TOBY PURSER was born in Yorkshire and grew up in the Welsh border counties of Shropshire and Herefordshire. He read History at Oxford University and returned to pursue postgraduate research, which led to a doctorate in Medieval English aristocratic society. He has taught at Oundle School and is currently Head of History at Shiplake College, where he takes trips to the First World War battlefields of Belgium and France. Toby has published three books on English history for teaching in schools and several articles for academic journals.