SOPRANO

Born in Bedford, Rachel Nicholls read French and Linguistic Science at the University of York, furthering her studies at the Royal College of Music where she won the President's Rose Bowl for the Most Outstanding Student of the Year. Winner of the Second Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Competition, she made her début at London’s Royal Opera as Third Flowermaiden Parsifal, returning as Pepik The Cunning Little Vixen, EchoAriadne auf Naxos and Prilepa The Queen of Spades and other operatic engagements have included Philippa Babette’s Feast at the Linbury Studio Theatre, Frasquita Carmen, Tatyana Eugene Onegin and Flora The Knot Garden for Scottish Opera, the title role in Erismena, Ginevra Ariodante and Elisa Tolomeo for English Touring Opera, Miss Schlesen Satyagraha for English National Opera, Dorinda Orlando for the Atelier Lyrique, Tourcoing, TheophanoOttone and MetellaSilla at the London Handel Festival, Handel’s Susanna for The Early Opera Company, Fiordiligi Così fan tutte for Longborough Festival Opera, Donna Elvira Don Giovanni for Mid Wales Opera, Elettra Idomeneo for New Sussex Opera, Junon Platée for T.C.C. Productions, Lisbon, Jenifer The Midsummer Marriage and Shepherd Tannhäuser at the St Endellion Festival and Jessie Mahagonny Songspiel at the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte, Montepulciano.

Rachel Nicholls made her international début singing Messiah under the direction of Sir David Willcocks in Halle. Other concert appearances include performances with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Darmstadt Hofkapelle, the Hanover Band, the London Handel Players, the London Mozart Players, the Orchestra of St John’s, Le Parlement de Musique and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, as well as at the Brighton, Chelsea, Fishguard, London Handel and Three Choirs Festivals. Conductors with whom she has worked in opera and concert include Thomas Dausgaard, Sir Colin Davis, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Valery Gergiev, Martin Gester, Richard Hickox, Sir Simon Rattle, Steven Sloane and Masaaki Suzuki. Her broadcasts include the Christmas Oratorio with Le Parlement de Musique and Dorinda Orlando with La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy for Radio France and Sally Flashmob - The Opera, Schoenberg Quartet No. 2 with the Quatuor Parisii and In Tune for the BBC. Her recordings include B Minor Mass (BIS), Metella Silla (Somm). Hummel Mass in D Minor (Chandos), Music by Cecilia McDowall (Dutton) and Paul Spicer’s Easter Oratorio (Birmingham Bach Choir).

Current engagements include First Niece Peter Grimes at the St Endellion Festival, Joan For You for Music Theatre Wales, Fiordiligi Così fan tutte at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Donna Elvira Don Giovanni at the Gregynog Festival, Armida Rinaldo, Nerone L’Incoronazione di Poppea, the B Minor Mass, the St Matthew Passion (arranged Mendelssohn) and Messiah with Bach Collegium Japan, Jauchzet Gott with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in London and Minneapolis, Brahms Requiem, The Kingdom and Verdi Requiem in King’s College, Cambridge, Dvorak Stabat Mater with the BBC Concert Orchestra, Messiah with the Apollo Chamber Orchestra, Mahler Symphony No. 2 in Guildford Cathedral, Carmina Burana in Naples, Pulcinella with the Britten Sinfonia, Erwartung with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Il tramonto and Schönberg String Quartet No. 2 with the Quatuor Parisii, Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle in Rome, the Strauss Song Series at the Wigmore Hall, Szymanowski Stabat Mater for Huddersfield Choral Society, Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music at the BBC Proms, and Sinfonia Antartica for the Philharmonia Orchestra,  Verdi Requiem in Winchester Cathedral, Errollyn Wallen’s Run! at the Greenwich + Docklands International Festival and an Opera Gala with the the Oxford Philomusica.

www.rachelnicholls.com

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