Lux Aeterna - Soloists

Scottish baritone Arthur Bruce is a former Scottish Opera Emerging Artist, a Samling Artist, and a Britten—Pears Young Artist. He is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's Alexander Gibson Opera School, and English National Opera's Opera Works programme. In 2018 Arthur was in the final round of the “Concorso per il Biennio di perfezionamento per cantanti lirici” at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala, Milan.

Recent engagements include covering the Gamekeeper in Rusalka (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden); Belcore in L’elisir d’amore (Longborough Festival Opera); Moralès in Carmen (Waterperry Opera Festival); covering the title role in Don Giovanni, Schaunard in La Bohème, Guglielmo in Così fan Tutte, Starveling in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, all for Scottish Opera, and Wolfram in Tannhäuser (Saffron Opera Group).

Next year Arthur is looking forward to returning to the Royal Opera House, as well projects with Chelsea Opera Group and a recording with Retrospect Opera.

Alison MacDonald studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama with Sharon McKinley and Douglas Cummings. She graduated with distinction and was the recipient of the college string prize. Alison appeared as a freelance cellist with the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, Sinfonia Cymru and the Charlie Barber Band. She was also a member of the Sentica Piano Trio, Junior Fellows in chamber music at RWCMD. The group performed extensively including recitals at St Paul’s Covent Garden, St John’s College Oxford, Halifax Square Chapel Festival and Highgrove. The trio also undertook concert tours in Colombia, Venezuela and Portugal.

Alison moved to Aberdeen in 2005. She is now principal ‘cello of Aberdeen Sinfonietta, a member of the Cargill Piano Trio and performs regularly with the Aberdeen Chamber players. She teaches at Aberdeen City Music School, St Margaret’s School for Girls and Robert Gordon’s College.

Kamil Mika took his Master’s degree in Organ Performance at the Academy of Music in Cracow under Prof. Andrzej Białko. He continued his music studies at the Hochschule für Musik in Mainz with Prof. Gerhard Gnann and took part in several organ masterclasses with such professors as: Olivier Latry, Daniel Roth, Ben van Oosten, Wolfgang Zerer, Harald Vogel, Lorenzo Ghielmi, Guy Bovet, Pieter van Dijk, David Titterington, Jane Parker-Smith and Christophe Mantoux.

Kamil won first prize in the X International Organ Competition in Castellana Grotte (Italy, 2011) and third prize in the I National Competition of Organ and Chamber Music “Per Artem ad Astra” in Krasnobrod (Poland, 2007).

He has performed in music festivals in Austria, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Ukraine and Wales as a soloist and an ensemblist. The concerts took place at venues including:

Chapel of Royal Palace, Madrid, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh, Arctic Cathedral, Tromsø; the cathedrals of Barcelona, Salamanca, Cagliari, Tallinn, Fulda; the universities of Glasgow and St Andrews, and churches in Budapest, Padova, Prague, Seville and Vienna.

Together with the Orchestra of Uzghorod Philharmonic and conductor Victoria Savlyavchyk-Tsanko he performed Mieczysław Surzyński’s Organ Concerto in G minor at the Uzghorod Philharmonia in Ukraine. In 2013 he recorded a CD Spanische Barockorgel an der Hochschule für Musik Mainz on a new Spanish organ by Joaquín Louis Cabello from Castile.

In 2019 he was awarded a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in Poland for the Polish Organ Music Festival project in Cracow.

His last project of the organ series Bach & Mendelssohn took place at St James Episcopal Church in Aberdeen where he performed six concerts with the complete organ sonatas by Felix Medelssohn-Bartholdy.

Kamil is currently Vice-President of Aberdeen & District Organists’ Association and member of the committee of the International Association of Organists “Organ in Progress” in Italy.

Kamil is based in Aberdeen where he teaches organ and serves as an organist at St James Episcopal Church and regularly assists at the King’s Chapel at Aberdeen University.