'At a time when it is harder and harder for young composers to establish a distinctive voice - too many styles, too much music easily available to them - Frances-Hoad's approach is individual, quirky perhaps, but distinctly special.' 
Andrew Clements, The Guardian.

 
A prodigious talent, Cheryl Frances-Hoad was born in Southend-on-Sea and received her musical education at the Yehudi Menuhin School, Cambridge University and Kings College London. She currently lives in Cambridge. She won the BBC Young Composer Competition in 1996 at the age of 15 and since then her works have garnered numerous prizes and awards, including the first Robert Helps International Composition Prize (2005), the Cambridge Composer’s Competition, the Birmingham Conservatoire Composition Competition, and the International String Orchestra Composition Competition.
 
Recent awards include, in 2007, the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize, resulting in the premiere of "My day in Hell" at the Cheltenham Music Festival by the Dante Quartet (broadcast by Radio 3), and, in 2008, a Leverhulme Trust Artists in Residence Fellowship, enabling her to investigate aspects of the mind at the Cambridge University Psychiatry Department, providing inspiration for a major new work for ‘cello and orchestra. In 2008 she was also awarded the Wicklow County Council Per Cent for Arts Commission (Ireland), which allowed her to compose her first piano concerto, premiered by Bobby Chen and the Greystones Orchestra in May 2009.

 
Cheryl’s debut CD of chamber works is due for release late in 2009 and will feature many of Britain’s most talented artists, including Nicholas Daniel (oboe), The London Mozart Trio, the Lendvai String Trio, Natalia Lomeiko (violin) and Kreisler Ensemble. Other major commissions have included works for the Almeida Festival ("Tread Softly", performed by the Composers Ensemble), Nicholas Daniel and CUCO ("A Refusal to Mourn" for oboe and string orchestra), and the New Cambridge Opera Group, Nicholas Daniel and the Schubert Ensemble ("Memoria": commissioned and performed at the 2002 Spitalfields Festival).
 

 
Her work has been premiered in some of the world’s most important chamber music venues, including the Wigmore Hall ("Melancholia" (piano trio), "Excelsus" (solo ‘cello) and "My fleeting Angel" (piano trio)) and the Purcell Room ("The Glory Tree" (for soprano and six instruments), and "The Ogre Lover" (for string trio)). Recently, she was one of six composers chosen to contribute to Tête à Tête’s opera "The Guilty Mother" (libretto by the Olivier-award winning Amanda Holden).

 
'Stylistically and tonally, the blend was sensational...a vivid, compelling performance.’ Anna Picard, The Independent on Sunday (Liebeslieder, Wigmore Hall)

 
Founded by British pianist Alisdair Hogarth, The Prince Consort is fast emerging as a fresh, exciting and versatile ensemble. Their performances are characterised by relaxed yet polished presentation of wide-ranging and accessible programmes, which showcase different combinations of voice and piano, from solos to small groups in piano-accompanied song. The group is enthusiastically supported by artistic advisors Neil Mackie CBE, renowned pianists John Blakely and Roger Vignoles, and leading producer John Fraser. 

 
The group consists of six founder members, who met whilst studying at the Royal College of Music.
 
Soprano Anna Leese has appeared numerous times in leading roles at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and was a soloist at the Last Night of the Proms 2008.
 
Mezzo soprano Jennifer Johnston made acclaimed debuts at the Salzburg Festival as Carmi/La Betulia Liberata (released on DVD by Deutsche Grammaphon) and at the Festival d’Aix en Provence as Dido/Dido and Aeneas.
 
Countertenor Tim Mead has recently debuted at the Royal Opera House in the world premiere of Birtwistle’s The Minotaur, and at Glyndebourne Festival Opera as Title Role/Giulio Cesare.
 
Tenor Andrew Staples won the song prizes at both the Kathleen Ferrier and Richard Tauber Awards in 2005 and has appeared as a solo artist at the Royal Opera House and with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle.
 
Baritone Jacques Imbrailo won the Audience Prize at Cardiff Singer of the World in 2007 and was a member of the Jetter Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House. 
 
Alisdair Hogarth, piano, and the Director of the Prince Consort, is the regular partner to many of his generation’s finest young artists and made his concerto debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 15.
 
Following their highly praised debut in the Fresh Series at the Purcell Room (Britten’s Canticles and Strauss Lieder), they hit the musical headlines when one of their recitals was auctioned for charity for £14,000. Recent performances have included a critically acclaimed interpretation of Brahms’ Liebeslieder with Graham Johnson at the Wigmore Hall, Zigeunerlieder at the Oxford Lieder Festival, Orpheus Brittanicus at the Aldeburgh Festival and an appearance on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune. They have also recently undertaken a residency at Aldeburgh, and have recorded their debut CD of Ned Rorem songs for Linn Records, due for release in October 2009. Their audioblog can be heard on Classic FM’s website. Future engagements include the official European Premiere of Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen at the Oxford Lieder Festival 2009 and a return to the Wigmore Hall in 2010.