Winner of Second Prize at the 2020 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Ella Taylor is a soprano with a passion for performing contemporary music and works by women and gender non-conforming artists. They were a Young Artist with the National Opera Studio for the 2019 / 2020 season, and graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, where they gained Distinction in MA Performnace, a DipRAM for an outstanding final recial and the Charles Norman Prize. They currently study with Elizabeth Ritchie.
Operatic work includes Galatea Acis and Galatea at the Royal Academ of Music, Countess Almaviva Le Nozze di Figaro for the Strand Chamber Orchestra and Second Lady Die Zauberflöte for Lyric Opera Studio, Weimar). They have also created the roles of Susanne Meyer in Jonathan Higgins’s Schutzwall for Tête à Tête and Father in Alex Mills’ and Gareth Mattey’s A Father is Looking for his Daughter for Rough for Opera/Second Movement, as well as performing in scenes as Agnès Written on Skin, The Governess The Turn of the Screw, Vixen Sharp-Ears The Cunning Little Vixen and Cendrillon in both Massenet and Viardot’s versions of Cendrillon.
Notable concert highlights include Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs at Sheffield Cathedral, Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire at the Royal Academy of Music, and a performance on BBC Radio 3 of Oliver Knussen’s Trumpets at the British Composer Awards. Their BBC broadcasts further include Music Matters and their concert repertoire includes many of the major oratorios by J. S. Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mozart.
Ella Taylor is a keen collaborator and recitalist, making a dedicated effort to work with and perform works by people underrepresented in classical music. Recent collaborations include the project After Violence with _REMIX; an exploration of violence and masculinity through a queer lens with drag artist Rhys’s Pieces, as well as working with composers and librettists in the creation of new, LGBT+ work. They also have performed at Leeds Lieder as part of the Composer and Poets Forum and with Ensemble 360 at Music in the Round.
Other accolades include the Lesley Garrett Opera Prize (David Clover Singers Platform), finalist in the Peter Hulsen Orchestral Song Award with the Southbank Sinfonia, and being awarded BBC Chorister of the Year.
Ella Taylor’s time at the Studio was generously supported by Cooper Sinclair, the Sybil Tutton Award from Help Musicians UK and the Opera Awards Foundation.
Their current engagements include Pierrot Lunaire with The Façade Ensemble and a Momentum Recital with Roderick Williams for the 2021 Brighton Festival at Glyndebourne. They have also been selected as a Semi-Finalist for the 2021 Royal Overseas League Music Competition.
Please note that this biography is not to be used for programmes. Current information is available on request.
