Sasha Johnson Manning graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 1985 and has worked as a full time soprano and composer ever since. Her singing career includes the BBC Radio 4 Daily Service and extensive oratorio work throughout the country. She has performed across Europe and in Israel and the USA. She has worked with the Deller Consort, The Academy of St. Martin-in-the fields, the Britten Singers, Musical Offering and Partita. As a composer Sasha specialises in writing for voices and held the position of composer-in-residence of the St. Louis Chamber Chorus of Missouri for eight years, culminating in a Requiem for St.Louis. Sasha has composed for Emma Kirkby, James Bowman, Lynne Dawson, Claron McFadden and the London Baroque.

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Carol Ann Duffy's collections include Mean Time, The World's Wife and Rapture. Her work has received every major poetry prize, including the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2006. She has been awarded the OBE and CBE for services to poetry and is currently Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University.