A wonderful evening is in store for us at St Cyprian's on April 9th at 7.30pm. The All Sorts are a female vocal quartet made up of professional Glasgow-based singers: Barbara Cole Walton, Grace Wain, Sarah Shorter and Jane Monari.

They have sung live on BBCR4's Woman's Hour, and appeared together in many different guises onstage for Scottish Opera.

They promise an evening of golden oldies, classical, show tunes and some traditional Scottish songs. See you there!

The All Sorts

Barbara Cole Walton comes from Vancouver Island, Canada, and has specialised in singing
Disney since the tender age of 4. She moved to Glasgow to attend the RCS and now balances
opera singing with moonlighting as “the one who sings the high notes” for The All Sorts.

At Scottish Opera she has sung the Shepherd Boy in Tosca and covered the Controller in
Flight (Jonathon Dove) and Casilda in The Gondoliers. Other singing work has included
touring in England, France, and Japan as Blonde in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail
for Diva Opera and premiering as the Linnet in The Selfish Giant (John Barber) for
Garsington Youth Opera.

Covid-19 has brought out Barbara’s love of power tools and gardening. She is now the owner
of a shed and is enjoying expanding her collection of dangerous saws.


Grace Wain graduated from RWCMD with an MA in Opera Performance, before moving to
Bonnie Scotland.

She has most recently sung Giulia in The Gondoliers, and has also covered Dorabella in Così
fan tutte, Second Lady in The Magic Flute and Glasha in Katya Kabanova, all for Scottish
Opera. She has also sung Zweite Dame/Zweite Knabe in Die Zauberflöte (Escales Lyriques)
and Prince Charmant in Cendrillon (Fife Opera). Grace is also a regular part of the Scottish
Opera Chorus.

As is the fate of mezzos everywhere, Grace has spent most of her career singing an awkward
harmony somewhere below the sopranos but, since forming The All Sorts, she has found
great fulfilment in (sometimes) being allowed to sing the tune.



Sarah Shorter was peer pressured into taking her first singing lessons at the tender age of
10. It’s a slippery slope. She trained in opera at the Royal Academy of Music in London and
moved to Glasgow for love, liberty and, apparently, close harmony.

Before lockdown, she sang the role of Julia Bertram in Jonathan Dove’s Mansfield Park with
Opera South, but north of the border you might have noticed her performing regularly with
Scottish Opera. She covered Giovanna in Rigoletto, Flora in La Traviata, Peep Bo in The
Mikado, and Kitchen Boy in Rusalka. She recently got back to doing what she loves in frilly
style by cachucha fandango bolero-ing in The Gondoliers.

Her DIY projects are ongoing and she will happily talk about plasterboard if you really want.


Jane Monari hails from the city of Philadelphia, USA. She completed her BMus at Juilliard
and her MA at the Royal Academy of Music, before moving to Scotland to study opera at the
RCS.

She appeared as a soloist with the City of Glasgow Chorus and the Orchestra of Scottish
Opera (Missa Solemnis, Israel in Egypt, Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, Mozart’s Requiem) and
has since worked in the Scottish Opera chorus, mostly singing, but sometimes cracking the
whip as dance captain. She has sung the Page (Rigoletto, Scottish Opera), the Prince
(Cendrillon, Fife Opera), Carmen (Opera at the King’s Head), and Suzuki (Madam Butterfly,
OperaUpClose).

She loves singing the accompanimental bass part, as she rarely has to remember any words.


The ladies of The All Sorts all became pet-mothers in the past year. Questions about Flora,
Hester, and Bunbury will be eagerly responded to.