About

Clara Orif, award-winning soprano, currently performs with Royal Academy of Music Opera and is an Oxford Song Emerging Artist. Her recent stage performances include the role of Ginevra in the Royal Academy’s 2023 production of Handel’s Ariodante, Fanny in Rossini’s La cambiale di martrimonio, Barbarina in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and Iphis in Haendel’s Jephtha.

Born in Paris into a French-Scottish family, she is currently based in London. Clara is generously supported by the London Women’s Clinic Foundation Award.

Aksel Rykkvin is an award-winning Norwegian baritone based in London. He is studying for a BMus in voice under Prof. Mark Wildman at the Royal Academy of Music 2022-26, with a prestigious ABRSM scholarship. Aksel has performed as a baritone soloist at festivals, concerts and operas in Norway, Sweden, UK, Austria and Germany. At Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber’s Lied festival in 2023, Neue Zürcher Zeitung praised his ‘voice as beautiful as blood and milk’ and Deutschlandfunk radio commended his ‘extremely clear diction’.

James Cheung has played in many song recitals at the Halls with singers such as Benjamin Appl in Schubert’s Winterreise & Die schöne Müllerin, and Alison Rose and Marcus Farnsworth in Hugo Wolf’s Italian Songbook. He partnered Agata Daraskaite violin in the Great Hall in Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. He has given masterclasses at RAM with celebrated baritone Christian Gerhaher in which Clara Orif took part.

Clara Orif soprano
Aksel Rykkvin baritone
James Cheung piano

Schumann Myrthen Op.25