<Huntley>

Anna Huntley Mezzo Soprano

Recipient of INDEPENDENT OPERA Voice Fellowship at the Royal College of Music

Mezzo-Soprano, Anna Huntley recently graduated from the Benjamin Britten International Opera School at the Royal College of Music where she was supported by a Sir Jack Ackroyd Award and Sir Thomas Allen Scholarship studying with Russell Smythe. Prior to this she attended the Junior Royal Academy of Music before being awarded a full scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music. She graduated with a 1st Class Honours Degree, the Mary Burgess Award for Academic Excellence and a Postgraduate Diploma with Distinction. Other prizes and awards include an Independent Opera Fellowship 2009, the Michael Oliver Prize in the London Handel Singing Competition 2009, the Douglas Craig Opera Bursary 2009, the Hampshire Singing Prize, the Oxford Recital Award and Music Benevolent Fund Education Awards. She was also a semi-finalist in the 2009 Kathleen Ferrier Awards and was selected by Thomas Quasthoff to take part in the live finals of the inaugural ‘Das Lied’ competition in Berlin.

Professional operatic work to date includes Dido / Sorceress (cover) in ‘After Dido’ based on Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas for English National Opera with Christian Curnyn and Katie Mitchell; chorus for Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2008; Hermia (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) for English Touring Opera and Dorabella (Cosi fan tutte) for English Chamber Opera whilst other roles include Ramiro (La Finta
Giardiniera), Angelina (Cenerentola) and Mignon for the BBIOS; Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro) for Dartington International Summer School; Isabella (L’italiana in Algeri) at the XXIV Festival Internazionale de Musica Cinque Terre; Cis in Albert Herring for British Youth Opera and Cherubino, Sesto (Guilio Cesare) and Stewardess in Dove’s Flight at the RAM. Anna performs extensively on the concert platform across Europe and is a regular soloist in oratorio most notably in the Bach B Minor Mass with Trevor Pinnock; Handel’s The Choice of Hercules with Daniel Taylor and Laurence Cummings and the Haydn St Nicholas Mass in the King’s Lynn Festival with the European Union Chamber Orchestra. Other concert work includes Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Colne Philharmonic Orchestra; a concert of Handel arias and duets with Laurence Cummings at the El Escorial Festival, Madrid and recitals at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Handel House and the Winchester Festival.

She has participated in masterclasses with Siegfried Jerusalem (Wiener Meisterkurse), Edith Wiens, Patricia MacMahon, Ann Murray, Michael Chance (London Handel Festival), Petra Lang (Mahler Society), Robert Tear, Jan Phillipe Schulze and Roger Vignoles. Anna is a Samling Foundation Scholar, a Concordia Foundation and Live Music Now! Artist and is generously supported by the Josephine Baker Trust and Platform Tees Valley.