Letters of Note: Music Audiobook

About Shaun Usher

Juliet Stevenson is a narrator who is recipient of the AudioFile Golden Voice Award. She has won the prestigious Audie Award and numerous Earphones Awards for her narrations. She is a British actress on stage and screen and notably a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has also appeared in popular films such as Bend It Like Beckham and Mona Lisa Smile. She was honored as a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. She received further recognition when she was nominated for several BAFTA Awards, and she earned an Olivier Award for her role in Death and the Maiden.

About the Narrators

Adrian Edmondson is well-known for his roles in The Young Ones, and Bottom, which he wrote with his long-term comedy partner, the late Rik Mayall. He recently starred in the BBC’s adaptation of War and Peace and won Celebrity Masterchef in 2013. His first adult novel, The Gobbler, was published in 1996. He has three daughters with his wife - actress, screenwriter and comedian Jennifer Saunders - and lives in London

Miriam Margolyes received the BAFTA Best Supporting Actress award in 1993 for The Age of Innocence. She was the voice of Fly the dog in Babe and appeared in Ladies in Lavender with Dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. In 2002 she played the role of Professor Sprout in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Nick Cave has been performing music for more than thirty years as the lead singer of the Birthday Party, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and Grinderman. He has collaborated with Kylie Minogue, PJ Harvey, and many others. His first novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel, was published in 1989. Born in Australia, Cave now lives near Brighton, England.

Simon Callow is an actor, director, and writer. He has appeared in many films, including Four Weddings and a Funeral. He made his stage debut in 1973 and came to prominence in a critically acclaimed performance as Mozart in the original stage production of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus at the Royal National Theatre in 1979. He is well known for a series of one-man shows that have toured internationally and featured subjects including Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, Jesus, and Richard Wagner. His books include, among others, a highly acclaimed biography of Charles Laughton, a biographical trilogy on Orson Welles, and My Life in Pieces, which won the Sheridan Morley Prize in 2011.

Stephen Fry is an award-winning comedian, actor, presenter, and director. He rose to fame alongside Hugh Laurie in A Bit of Fry and Laurie (which he cowrote with Laurie) and Jeeves and Wooster and was unforgettable as General Melchett in Blackadder. He hosted over 180 episodes of QI and has narrated all seven of the Harry Potter novels for the audiobook recordings. In addition to his Greek Myths series, he is the bestselling author of The Ode Less Travelled, Fry’s Ties, four novels (Revenge, Making History, The Hippopotamus, and The Liar), and three volumes of autobiography (Moab Is My Washpot, The Fry Chronicles, and More Fool Me).

Miriam Margolyes received the BAFTA Best Supporting Actress award in 1993 for The Age of Innocence. She was the voice of Fly the dog in Babe and appeared in Ladies in Lavender with Dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. In 2002 she played the role of Professor Sprout in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Marie Lu is the author of the New York Times bestselling series The Young Elites, as well as the blockbuster bestselling Legend series. She graduated from the University of Southern California and jumped into the video game industry as an artist before becoming a full-time writer.

Louise Brealey, AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator, studied history at Cambridge University before studying acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in Manhattan. On television, she appeared in the long-running medical drama Casualty on BBC One in 2002, appearing in ninety-six episodes. Afterwards, she appeared in the BBC serialization of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House, as well as Hotel Babylon, Law & Order: UK, Ripper Street, and in all series of Sherlock as Molly Hooper.

Distinguished stage, television, and film actor Toby Jones was born in Hammersmith, London to actors Freddie Jones and Jennifer Heselwood. He studied Drama at the University of Manchester, and at L’École Internationale de Théâtre in Paris. His career began on the stage (and continues there), but film and television roles came soon after his studies. Toby made his film debut with a small role in Sally Potter‘s experimental take on Virginia Woolf‘s novel, Orlando, starring Tilda Swinton. Recently, he has had roles in the Hunger Games films and the Captain America films.

Benedict Cumberbatch is a British screen actor best known for his role in the BBC television show Sherlock. He has also appeared in a number of Hollywood films, such as War Horse, The Hobbit, The Fifth Estate, and Star Trek: Into the Darkness. He has won several stage and screen acting awards, including the BAFTA/LA Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year and the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Actor and is an Earphones Award-winning narrator.

Adrian Edmondson is well-known for his roles in The Young Ones, and Bottom, which he wrote with his long-term comedy partner, the late Rik Mayall. He recently starred in the BBC’s adaptation of War and Peace and won Celebrity Masterchef in 2013. His first adult novel, The Gobbler, was published in 1996. He has three daughters with his wife - actress, screenwriter and comedian Jennifer Saunders - and lives in London

Stephen Mangan graduated from London’s RADA after studying law at Cambridge University. He spent several years in regional theater, playing in classics such as The Tempest, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet, and his successful seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the touring company Cheek By Jowl earned him a nomination for the Ian Charleson award for his roles as Sir Benjamin Backbite in The School for Scandal and Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing. He became a regular face in London’s West End in plays such as Hay Fever and Noises Off, but 2001 marked his breakthrough TV role as the eponymous character in the six-part BBC TV adaptation of Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years. Stephen has also appeared on screen as Dr. Guy Secretan in the TV comedy series Green Wing and has gone on to play a number of similarily self-obsessed characters on film such as Sean Sullivan in Festival and Josef in Confetti, a film which was wholly improvised.

Louise Brealey, AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator, studied history at Cambridge University before studying acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in Manhattan. On television, she appeared in the long-running medical drama Casualty on BBC One in 2002, appearing in ninety-six episodes. Afterwards, she appeared in the BBC serialization of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House, as well as Hotel Babylon, Law & Order: UK, Ripper Street, and in all series of Sherlock as Molly Hooper.

Adrian Edmondson is well-known for his roles in The Young Ones, and Bottom, which he wrote with his long-term comedy partner, the late Rik Mayall. He recently starred in the BBC’s adaptation of War and Peace and won Celebrity Masterchef in 2013. His first adult novel, The Gobbler, was published in 1996. He has three daughters with his wife - actress, screenwriter and comedian Jennifer Saunders - and lives in London

Aden Hakimi is a voice-over actor based in Brooklyn. He studied theater performance at Northeastern University in Boston, with adjunct studies at Cambridge University in England and the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin. For over a decade, he has done voice work for audiobooks, commercials, animation, and corporate videos.