Our Scholars
In September 2013, a new Scholarship scheme began at St John's under the leadership of our Director of Music. Four Choral Scholars (SATB) and an Organ Scholar now take part in most of the Sunday services, and at Choral Evensong, usually on the first Sunday of each month
Visit Our Services page for more details.
Vacancies
Gilbert Jackson BASS
Gilbert is currently a 4th year Chemist at Imperial College London. Gilbert started his singing career at the age of 11 by first joining the choir of St Mary’s, Bury St Edmunds.
Gilbert played the organ at St John’s Notting Hill as its organ scholar for a year under Tom Primrose. Gilbert is currently chair of the Imperial College Chamber Choir and still occasionally plays the organ for services both in London and in his home county of Suffolk.
Gilbert was also a member of the winning team (Imperial) of University Challenge Series 51 and in his spare time he has made it his mission to visit every church within The City of London and every English cathedral.
Ben Miller TENOR
Ben is in his third year at Imperial College London studying Physics. He began singing at a young age being involved with choirs at school and took part in productions of Tosca at the ENO and The Magic Flute at Nevill Holt Opera. Ben currently sings in the Imperial College Chamber Choir and is a bassoonist in the Imperial College Symphony Orchestra and Sinfonietta. As a holder of the Ash Music Scholarship, Ben also studies singing under Ben Johnson at the Royal College of Music.
Ruby Skilbeck SOPRANO
Ruby Skilbeck was a chorister at Guildford Cathedral since the age of 9. She served as Head Chorister from 2020-2021 and holds a Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) Gold Award. Ruby was the winner of BBC Young Chorister of the Year 2021. She has recorded with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and has done recordings for BBC1 Songs of Praise, BBC Radio 2 and as a soloist for BBC Radio 4. She won the Junior Guildhall Vocal Prize 2022 and has recently performed as a soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at The Albert Hall as well as a soloist at Nottingham Royal Concert Hall in a charity concert with John Rutter. She is also a member of Genesis Sixteen in the 2023-24 cohort. Ruby is now continuing her vocal studies, after having left school, with a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music.
My Linh Ton SOPRANO
Originally from France, soprano Mỹ Linh Ton recently graduated from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire with a first class BMus in Vocal and Operatic studies.
She started her musical journey at the Toulouse Conservatoire where she studied the cello, the piano and was a member of the internationally acclaimed Maîtrise de Toulouse under the direction of Mark Opstad.
At the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, she had the opportunity to perform roles in various productions such as Mary Kimes in the 2022 production of McNeff’s Banished and Cricket in The Cunning Little Vixen by Janacek. She also was a finalist for the 2023 Edward Brook’s Lieder Prize.
Mỹ Linh takes a great interest in contemporary music and has premiered works including Arias without Opera by Fatou Sourang, Lichtenstein Lied by Simon Paton, and Lettres de Mersenne by Marteen Benschop.
As well as singing, Mỹ Linh is a French language coach for singers, her contributions most recently being seen in the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s 2022 Opera Double Bill and the Derwent Singers.
Alongside music, My Linh has a passion for literature and history and premiered earlier this year her own project called “Vert(laine) Rimbalien”, a staged performance based on the poetry and lives of Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, including dramatic and musical performance.
Amalia Young VIOLINIST FOR ALTO
Amalia Young is a London-based violinist, improviser, and mezzo soprano. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, the University of Oxford, and most recently Goldsmiths University of London, she now enjoys a varied freelance career working in the fields of classical and experimental music. Recent projects as a violinist have included performing and recording with Apartment House, an Arts Council England funded residency with the Komuna Collective, and solo performances whilst studying at the Darmstadt Festival and the Orpheus Institute in Belgium. She has also performed in ensembles at the Aldeburgh Festival, EFG London Jazz Festival, London Fashion Week, and as a soloist at the Holywell Music Room, the Sheldonian Theatre, the Ashmolean Museum, and St Martin-in-the-Fields. Previously a choral scholar at St James the Greater in Leicester, and an alto at St George Headstone, Amalia is delighted to now be joining the choir at St John’s Notting Hill
Tomas Escobar ORGAN SCHOLAR
Tomás started learning music with the Kodaly Method at age four. Having also interacted with church and choral music from a young age, he began learning organ when he was 15, studying with Julie Ainscough. He has since picked up various bits of experience, accompanying his school’s choir and participating in the Royal College of Organists’ TOSE course in 2023. Tomás balances his organ commitments with saxophone, piano and oboe, and is currently preparing to take his A-levels. Tomás participated in the National Youth Jazz Collective’s Summer School 2023 and was the winner of Richmond Young Pianist 2023. In the future, Tomás hopes to have a career in music.