Elin Manahan Thomas has a distinctive, bright and expressive voice very much suited to the program of pieces she has chosen for her debut disc. The disc begins with a 1000-year-old piece by Hildegard Von Bingen and winds its way through mostly well-known Baroque arias aiming to capture a wider audience. The hour-long program includes several popular arias by Handel, Vivaldi, Pergolesi, Dowland, Purcell and Arne. She is joined by countertenor Robin Blaze for the final piece, ‘Pur Ti Miro’, a duet by Monteverdi from The Coronation of Poppea.

Thomas honed her early music skills by singing with John Elliot Gardiner’s Moneteverdi Choir on his Bach cantata pilgrimage. She is accompanied here by Baroque choral music specialist Harry Christophers and The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. This disc will appeal to a contemporary audience due to Thomas’s ability to successfully communicate Baroque music.

Catherine Koerner is from Readings Hawthorn