Spanish born Clara Mouriz graduated from the Escuela Superior de Canto in Madrid achieving the End of Studies Extraordinary Prize in 2002. In the same year she won an entrance scholarship to study with Noelle Barker at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Clara graduated from the Royal Academy Opera in 2005 with Distinction and the prestigious Outstanding Diploma of RAM. She was presented with the Vice-Principal’s Award in recognition of her successes and during her studentship she won the celebrated Richard Lewis Award.
She attended Maestro Zedda's Accademia Rossiniana Pesaro 2004, with support from Peter Moores Foundation, and the Sir George Solti Accademia di Bel Canto in 2005. She has also performed in masterclasses with Victoria de los Angeles, Teresa Berganza, Jean Rigby, Ann Murray and Kiri Te Kanawa.
Clara Mouriz began her operatic career playing La Nina Blanca in the premier of Anton Garcia Abril's Divinas Palabras at the Teatro Real, Madrid conducted by Ros-Marba, appearing in the cast alongside Placido Domingo. She has played Olga in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin for British Youth Opera and Tirinto in Handel's Imeneo for Cambridge Handel Opera. She has sung La Marquesa Melibea in  Viaggio a Reims at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro and, at the Spanish Mozart Festival, she has appeared in Mozart's Die Zauberflote, Rossini's La Cenerentola and Monteverdi's L'Incoronatione di Poppea.
Recently Clara Mouriz has appeared in concert singing Falla's El Amor Brujo conducted by Thierry Fisher and Haydn and Vivaldi in the Gilder Lehrman Hall of the Morgan Library, New York. She has also appeared at the Spitalfields Festival, Cadogan Hall, and Bolivar Hall.
She has recorded Turina's Poema en Forma de Canciones for the Royal Academy of Music and led workshops for the Wigmore Hall's Education Department in Latin and Spanish repertoire.
A committed recital singer, Clara Mouriz has appeared at venues including the Cheltenham International Festival and London Musici Nights as well as Juventudes Musicales, Amigos de la Opera and Quincena Musical in Spain. She was a winner of the Friends of the RAM Wigmore Award 2006.
Recently described in The Times as "the cream of the new generation", Joseph Middleton graduated with an MPhil from the University of Birmingham before studying piano on an EMI Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music with Michael Dussek and Malcolm Martineau. He was subsequently appointed the Hodgson Junior Fellow and on leaving the Academy he took up the post of College Musician at Pembroke College Cambridge and in 2008 a Junior Fellowship to the vocal faculty at the Royal College of Music. His major competition successes include the Accompaniment Prizes of the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition, Kathleen Ferrier Awards and Royal Over-Seas League Competition. He has also won the Yamaha Birmingham Accompanist of the Year and Geoffrey Parsons Memorial Awards.
Joseph regularly appears with many outstanding singers of his generation at prominent UK festivals including the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Edinburgh (for the Royal Over-Seas League series), Three Choirs, Norwich and Norfolk and Oxford Lieder, while abroad, performances have taken him to Italy, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Spain, Germany and France. He makes his North American début with a series of concerts in the Ravinia Festival in Chicago during the summer of 2009 when he joins the staff of the Steans Institute and plays for the masterclasses of Christoph Eschenbach, Matthias Goerne and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Joseph has made live broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 and gives frequent recitals at such venues as the Wigmore Hall, Royal Opera House, Royal Festival Hall, Purcell Room, St. John's, Smith Square and the Millennium Centre in Cardiff, Birmingham's Symphony Hall, Bristol's Colston Hall and The Sage Gateshead. He has been invited to programme a recital for Wigmore Hall's Master Series in 2010/11 with artists including Lucy Crowe.
Joseph's recent performances with singers have included partnering Sir Thomas Allen, Katherine Broderick, Sally Burgess, Allan Clayton, Ronan Collett, Katarina Karnéus, Andrew Kennedy, Anna Leese, Clara Mouriz, Ann Murray DBE, Robert Murray, Joan Rodgers and Amanda Roocroft. In 2008 he was chosen to be the inaugural Pianist Scholar for 'Samling'. As a keen chamber musician, Joseph has performed with Ruth Palmer, Alexander Baillie and Nicholas Daniel and will work with Emma Johnson later this year.
Joseph is extremely grateful for the financial assistance he received from the Wingate, Tillett Trust, Musicians Benevolent Fund, Sir James Caird, AHRC and RAM Foundation Scholarships.