Member profiles

Sabine Birch

Voice: soprano
Nationality: German
Occupation: teacher
Started singing: in the pram
Favourite music: Lieder by Schubert and Schumann
Fave composer: Mozart, Schubert, Brahms
Fave singer: Fischer-Dieskau
Fave CML concert: Deutsches Requiem by Brahms
Hobbies: Making music with my children at home and performing in shows at school


Margaret Jackson-Roberts

Voice: Tenor in mixed choirs; bass with Vivaldi's Women

Nationality: British

Occupation: Researcher, ad hoc university work

Home: Foothills of Hampstead

Started singing: School and church choirs, including a school madrigal group

Favourite music: Medieval, renaissance and baroque

Favourite composers: Bach, Handel, Vivaldi

Favourite singers: Any mellifluous tenor, past or present

Favourite CML concert: Monteverdi Vespers

Hobbies: Medieval history, fine gardens, architecture, learning to play trumpet


Mona Hess

Voice: soprano

Nationality: German

Occupation: Research Assistan/ PhD student at UCL

Home: N16 London

Started singing: voice lessons in school, several workshops for early
music in Germany and Switzerland, choirs and ensembles in 5 countries
mostly with a mixed repertory of early and contemporary music

Favourite music: early music, jazz, live music of any kind

Fave composer: Monteverdi, Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Ravel. I particularly
enjoy early Christian music from the 'new world', performed Gabriel
Garrido and his ensemble Elmya.

Fave director: John Eliot Gardiner

Fave CML concert: Bach B-minor mass in 2008, my first concert with the CML

Hobbies: museums and architecture, 1000 UNESCO heritage sites you must see
before you die, hiking, alpine skiing, golf, indoor climbing

Jude Cowan

Voice: Soprano

Nationality: British

Occupation: Researcher, archivist for media. Writer and songwriter.

Started singing: My granddad was a 'cellist with Sir John Barbirolli in the Halle Orchestra, he inspired me.

Favourite Music: I love everything. I have been a solo writer and performer for so long that the choral repertoire is a fabulous world of sensation. I'm bringing some influences from the different composers such as Brahms or Jonathan Dove into my new settings of William Blake songs for Hammond Organ and voice.

Fave composer: I'm too excited by the range of possibilities to have a fave at the moment. Everything I hear I just think - that's AMAZING.

Fave CML concert: I'm a real newbie - but my first concert of Purcell and Handel's Dixit Dominus was just brilliant, with the Belsize Baroque Chamber Ensemble, November 2009.

Hobbies: I'm a poet and a songwriter - that's very time consuming. But I do like to run around with my Bedlington terrier and cycle to the local park, hoping I don't come across any bobbies.

John Biggins

Voice: tenor

Nationailty: British

Occupation: Professional actor/ freelance graphic/web designer

Home: SE London

Started singing: at school

Favourite music: Most music apart from heavy rock, opera and bagpipes

Fave composer: as a former string player, I have to say Beethoven. But chorally, probably Bach

Fave singer: Janet Baker/Fischer-Dieskau/Paul Simon

Fave CML concert:
Rachmaninov: Liturgy of St John Chrysosdom, 2003

Hobbies: reading, tennis, Scrabble, Leeds United AFC

Liz Aram

Voice: Soprano

Nationailty: British

Occupation: Freelance communications consultant specialising in health
Home: Wimbledon

Started singing: probably in my pram

Favourite music: I’ve loved discovering completely new music such as the Latin American repertoire, Whitacre, early English, and modern English eg Jonathon Dove, Maxwell Davies

Fave composer: Still can’t beat J S Bach

Fave CML concert: The one I organised to benefit the mental health charity Mind of which I am a trustee – I think it’s great that the choir encourages people to bring ideas and connections

Hobbies: adventures with my family – this daft picture from a dude ranch in Colorado, literature classic and modern, being outdoors: running, cycling; my house in France (available to let - sorry for plug!)

Sebastian Borger

Voice: Bass/baritone

Nationality: German

Occupation: London correspondent for newspapers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

Home: Harringey, North London

Where did you start singing? At home with my parents and sisters

Favourite piece of choral music: St Matthew Passion

Favourite composer: Johann Sebastian Bach

Favourite singer: The Baritone Christian Gerhaher

Favourite CML concert: B-minor Mass in St James’s, Piccadilly

Hobbies and pastimes: Playing football in Finsbury Park with my wife, two sons and lots of neighbours, both parents and children