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 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 and during 2019 / 2020 were a Young Artist at London’s National Opera Studio, their studies generously supported by Cooper Sinclair, the Sybil Tutton Award from Help Musicians UK and the Opera Awards Foundation. They currently study with Elizabeth Ritchie. 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.
Recent engagements have included Sparrow in Rylan Gleave’s Powder Down for Shadwell Opera’s Digital Commission Series, Josquin des Prez: Mille Regretz for English Touring Opera’s Spring 2021 Digital Season; Pierrot Lunaire with The Façade Ensemble and Momentum: Our Future, Now Recitals with Roderick Williams for the 2021 Brighton Festival and at Vinehall School.
Further operatic experience includes Galatea Acis and Galatea at the Royal Academy 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. Their recordings include Burst forth my tears / Flow my tears (featuring music by John Dowland arranged for synthesisers), available on Classical Remix.
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. Recently, they gave a talk for the Royal Opera House’s Engender 2021 Festival about navigating a career as a trans opera singer, and how companies can be the most effective allies they can be. They also have performed at Leeds Lieder as part of the Composer and Poets Forum and with Ensemble 360 at Music in the Round. A feature interview appears in the September issue of Opera Now.
Their current engagements include Paris Paride ed Elena for Bampton Classical Opera, The Fox (Cover) The Cunning Little Vixen for English National Opera, The Cock / Innkeeper’s Wife The Cunning Little Vixen on tour with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (Birmingham, Dortmund, Hamburg, Paris), Gerda in Errolyn Wallen’s The Paradis Files for Graeae, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with Opus 48 and Alicia Thomas’ Tell me when you get home with the London Sinfonietta. They will also be an Emerging Artist for Oxford Lieder’s Autumn 2021 season.
A Feature Interview appears in the September 2021 edition of Opera Now.
Please note that this biography is not to be used for programmes. Current information is available on request.
