Our Team

James Bingham is a conductor and producer who has been described by the Sunday Times as ‘unashamedly messianic’ about classical music inclusion and accessibility. He is Musical Director of Wicklow Choral Society and manages the studio and outreach programmes at Irish National Opera where, amongst other achievements, he’s produced numerous operatic world premieres including the world’s first virtual reality opera, ‘Out of the Ordinary/As an gNách‘. Presently, James sits on the steering committee for RESEO, a European network for outreach producers in opera and ballet.

Before moving to Ireland, James worked as Project Co-ordinator in the education department at Glyndebourne, and as a Choral Delivery Artist for Opera North where he conducted over a thousand singers a week on a variety of different projects for the company. James has worked as a freelance choral conductor and animateur for organisations including Brighton Festival Youth Choir, Sheffield Cathedral, Only Boys Aloud and The National Children’s Choir of Great Britain. He holds an MA in Choral Conducting from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama where he studied with BBC Chorus Master, Neil Ferris. He was one of four finalists in the 2018  h 100 Young Influencer of the Year Award in association with The Hospital Club and The Arts Desk. James also hosts a weekly classical music radio show on Symphony Radio and sings as a Tenor in New Dublin Voices.

Rachel has performed numerous concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Prokofiev, Cesar Frank, Liszt, Turina, Litolf and Finzi with orchestras such as the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the RTE Concert Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra and the West Bohemian Orchestra in the Czech Republic. She has appeared in recital programmes at Arts Centres throughout Ireland, and abroad in Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria and Great Britain.

While completing her B.A. Moderatorship in music from Trinity College Dublin, Rachel studied in Dublin with Mabel Swainson, then continued in London with Craig Shepard and Benjamin Kaplan.  She was foundation Scholar in Postgraduate Performance at the Royal College in London and a Fulbright Scholar at the Peabody Conservatory in the United States.  Rachel undertook intensive courses of study with Nikita Magaloff in Switzerland’s Geneva Conservatory, Gyorgy Sandor at the Mozarteum in Austria and Murray Perahia at the Aldeburgh Music Festival in Great Britain where she was selected from world-wide auditions to receive specialised coaching and direction in the works of Frederick Chopin.

Rachel is a founding member of Ireland’s premier trio the ‘Degani Piano Trio’. They have recorded CDs of Piano Trios by Dvořak, Chopin, Brahms and Piazzolla . They perform concerts and regularly give masterclasses throughout Ireland. The Trio has recently completed a tour of a new specially commissioned work ‘Whale Tales’ by leading Irish composer Ian Wilson.

As a well-known Irish accompanist, she has also worked with many of Ireland’s leading classical musicians in concerts, competitions, live radio and television broadcasts. She curated and produced “Beethoven -Words and Music” for RTE and “Pride & Passion – Vistas of South America” in the past year, which was featured by the European Broadcasting Union. Rachel’s solo album ‘Mosaic’ features a diverse collection of solo piano music.