Guildhall singers selected by Royal Opera House as Jette Parker Young Artists 2019/20

Guildhall School of Music & Drama is delighted to announce that tenors Filipe Manu and Andrés Presno have been selected by the Royal Opera House as Jette Parker Young Artists for the 2019/20 Season.

Manu and Presno join the prestigious Jette Parker Young Artists (JPYA) Programme in September 2019. The programme is formed of five singers and one stage director, selected from more than 508 applicants from 61 countries across the globe:

• South African soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha
• British mezzo-soprano Stephanie Wake-Edwards
• Tongan/New Zealand tenor Filipe Manu
• Uruguayan tenor Andrés Presno
• South Korean bass-baritone ByeongMin Gil
• British director Isabelle Kettle

The process for the selection of the Jette Parker Young Artists began in August 2018. Seventy-six singers were selected for live audition. Twenty-seven singers progressed to the second round, involving a one-to-one coaching session with David Gowland, JPYA Artistic Director, and a panel audition with David Gowland, ROH Director of Casting Peter Mario Katona, senior répétiteur Mark Packwood, Australian soprano Yvonne Kenny and Elaine Kidd, Head of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme. 

The final shortlist of ten singers auditioned on the Royal Opera House’s main stage with the decision-making panel joined by Antonio Pappano, Music Director of The Royal Opera, Oliver Mears, Director of Opera, and The Royal Opera’s Head of Music Richard Hetherington.

Filipe Manu is currently a Masters student on the Opera Course at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where he is the Independent Opera Scholar and the Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers’ Scholar. Previously, Manu studied at the University of Waitkato with Dame Malvina Major as well as being an alumnus of the New Zealand Opera School. He has been a Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist with New Zealand Opera and was selected for the inaugural Dame Malvina Foundation Singer’s Development programme. He is also a Samling Artist. Competition highlights include winning the IFAC Handa-Australian Singing Competition and being runner-up in New Zealand’s Lexus Song Quest, in which he was named the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Most Promising Singer. Opera appearances include Rinuccio (Gianni Schicchi) for Auckland Opera Factory, Pilade (Oreste) and Romeo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi) for Auckland Opera Studio, Tebaldo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi) and Lensky (Eugene Onegin) for Days Bay Opera, Count Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia) and Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore) in abridged versions for New Zealand Opera and Ferrando (Così fan tutte) and Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) at Guildhall School. Notable concert appearances include La Damnation de Faust with the LSO under Simon Rattle, Messiah with NZSO under Nicholas McGegan and Pulcinella with the London Schools’ Symphony Orchestra. He makes his Royal Opera debut in the 2018/19 Season as Hippolyt in Phaedra.

Andrés Presno studies at Guildhall School of Music & Drama under Yvonne Kenny with the support of Centro Cultural de Música (Uruguay) and as a Guildhall Scholar. Formerly, Presno studied at Escuela Departamental de Canto Lirico and at Escuela Nacional de Arte Lirico del SODRE. He is also a Samling Artist. Opera appearances include Messenger (Aida), Parpignol (La bohème), Remendado (Carmen), Cassio (Otello), Giuseppini (El dúo de la Africana), Gastone de Letorières (La traviata), Ricardo (La del Manojo de Rosas) and Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly) at SODRE, chorus and solo roles at the Punta Classics Festival and Dr Caius (Falstaff) and Edmondo (Manon Lescaut) at Teatro Solis in Montevideo. He also participated in the recital Faust Visions in the SODRE chamber music season.

Three Guildhall alumni, soprano Francesca Chiejina (Opera Studies, 2016), tenor Thomas Atkins (Opera Studies, 2016) and baritone Dominic Sedgwick (Opera Studies, 2017) were part of the scheme for the 2017/18 season.