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Kitty Whately & William Vann
Biography Kitty Whately & William Vann
Kitty Whately
has been highly visible in Britain since being designated a BBC New Generation Artist from 2013 to 2015. Unusually versatile, she has performed opera, choral music, and lieder, and her repertory ranges from Gilbert and Sullivan to contemporary works.
Born Catherine Whately in London in 1983, she was the daughter of actor Kevin Whately. She appeared on television as the daughter of his onscreen character in the series Auf Wiedersehen. Whately was raised partly in northern England and attended Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester. There, she appeared as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. She went on to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and then the Royal College of Music International School. After winning several significant prizes, she was admitted to the Verbier Festival Academy, appearing there as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. These successes led to her designation as a BBC New Generation Artist in 2013 and to the chance to record her debut album, the song recital This Other Eden, on the Champs Hill label.
Since then, Whately has been a familiar figure on operatic stages, and not only in Britain. She appeared as Isabelle in Bernard Herrmann’s Wuthering Heights at L’Opéra National de Lorraine in France. At the Royal Opera House in London, she appeared as Mother/Other Mother in the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera Coraline, and she has been noted for championing contemporary works. At the Three Choirs Festival, she was heard in a new work by Sally Beamish, and she commissioned a song cycle from composer Jonathan Dove. Whately has made several more recordings on Champs Hill, and in 2019, she joined baritone Roderick Williams on The Song of Love, a collection of little-known material by Ralph Vaughan Williams. She remained active through the COVID-19 pandemic, appearing on the 2021 Chandos release The Harmonious Echo: Songs of Sir Arthur Sullivan and on Signum Classics’ The Complete Songs of Fauré, Vol. 4. In 2023, she issued the solo recital Befreit: A Soul Surrendered on Chandos. Whately is the co-founder of the charity SWAP’ra (Supporting Women and Parents in Opera).
William Vann
A multiple-prize winning and critically acclaimed choral, orchestral and opera conductor and song accompanist, William Vann is particularly renowned for his revival performances and recordings of vocal and choral music by British composers. His revivals of Hubert Parry’s Judith and Prometheus Unbound have been heralded by the press and audiences alike. Judith at Royal Festival Hall “was an unalloyed triumph for William Vann…he had complete command of the score and evident belief in the music” (Seen and Heard International) and his studio recordings for Chandos Records of Judith and Prometheus Unbound have been awarded a host of accolades, including Gramophone Recording of the Month. His recordings as a pianist are also critically acclaimed, with reviews including “a special word of praise for William Vann’s deft pianism” and “William Vann’s stylist and responsive support is a delight throughout.” Since 2024 he has been Chorus Master at The Grange Festival, where he returns in 2026 for performances of La bohème and Eugene Onegin. He will conduct a set of opera scenes at the Royal College of Music in February 2026.
Born in Bedford, he was a Chorister at King’s College, Cambridge and a Music Scholar at Bedford School. He subsequently read law and took up a choral scholarship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was taught the piano by Peter Uppard, and studied piano accompaniment at the Royal Academy of Music with Malcolm Martineau and Colin Stone.
William has collaborated across the world with a vast array of singers and instrumentalists, among them the Academy of Ancient Music, Britten Sinfonia, London Mozart Players and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Thomas Allen CBE, Mary Bevan, Sophie Bevan, Gwilym Bowen, Katie Bray, David Butt Philip, Allan Clayton, Dame Sarah Connolly, Neal Davies, Julia Doyle, Sarah Fox, James Gilchrist, Thomas Gould, Johnny Herford, Gareth John, Guy Johnston, Jennifer Johnston, Jack Liebeck, Njabulo Madlala, Pumeza Matshikiza, Aoife Miskelly, Ann Murray DBE, Ashley Riches, Matthew Rose, Kathryn Rudge, Carolyn Sampson, Brindley Sherratt, Julia Sitkovetsky, Nicky Spence, Toby Spence, Andrew Staples, Kitty Whately, Roderick Williams and the Sacconi and Navarra String Quartets.
Recent performances have included appearances at Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, the Royal Opera House and The Temple Church, at the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Oxford Lieder and Machynllech Festivals, the Northern Ireland Festival of Voice (broadcast on Radio 3) and abroad in Austria, France, Germany (on live ZDF television), Ireland, Italy, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa (National Arts Festival) and Sweden.
He has recorded over thirty discs for Albion, Champs Hill, Chandos, Delphian, Etcetera, Navona and SOMM, including a ground-breaking four-disc set of Vaughan Williams folk song settings on Albion with Mary Bevan, Nicky Spence, Roderick Williams and Jack Liebeck and, as a conductor, a world premiere series of recordings of Hubert Parry’s works for chorus and orchestra on Chandos Recording.
His many prizes for piano accompaniment include the Wigmore Song Competition Jean Meikle Prize for a Duo (with Johnny Herford), the Gerald Moore award, the Royal Overseas League Accompanists’ Award, a Geoffrey Parsons Memorial Trust award, the Concordia-Serena Nevill Prize, the Association of English Singers and Speakers Accompanist Prize, the Great Elm Awards Accompanist Prize, the Sir Henry Richardson Scholarship and the Hodgson Fellowship in piano accompaniment at the RAM.
In addition to his performances of standard song repertoire, he has also either commissioned or given the first performances of new songs and song cycles by Christian Alexander, Joseph Atkins, David Power, Martin Eastwood, Ian Venables, David Nield, Graham Ross (the latter two at Wigmore Hall) and many others. He has conducted Roderick Williams and the London Mozart Players performing his own arrangement for chamber orchestra of George Butterworth’s Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad.
He is an experienced competition adjudicator, recently judging the Final of the Association of English Singers and Speakers Patricia Routledge Competition, the Final of the Trinity Laban English Song Competition, the Whitgift School Piano Competition and the Clare College Carol Competition.
William is also the founder and Artistic Director of the London English Song Festival, the Director of Music at the Royal Hospital Chelsea and the Musical Director of both Dulwich Choral Society and The London Chorus. He is an Associate of the RAM, a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, a Trustee of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, a Samling Artist, a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, the Chairman of Kensington and Chelsea Music Society and a regular conductor and vocal coach at the Dartington and Oxenfoord International Summer Schools.
