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The English mezzo-soprano, Sarah Denbee, grew up in Somerset and first realised her passion for singing when she joined the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. She subsequently went to study Music & Italian at the University of Bristol, gaining a First Class Honours degree, and spent a year at the University of Bologna, Italy. After a foray into working in the world of arts administration, she decided to pursue singing as a career and passed the Fellowship of the Royal Schools of Music diploma in Vocal Performance (FRSM) and gained a Masters in Vocal Performance with Distinction from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance, generously supported by the Kathleen Roberts Scholarship. She has participated in master-classes with Ann Murray (Wigmore Hall), Steuart Bedford, Barbara Bonney, James Bowman, Emma Kirkby, Susan Bullock and Felicity Lott. She was awarded the Wilfred Greenhouse Allt Prize for Oratorio & Cantata, she won the 2012 Roy Pleasance Competition, and she was the Vocal Faculty's representative singer at the Isabelle Bond Gold Medal at Kings Place, Trinity's most prestigious award for solo performance, and was a Director's Prizewinner. She currently studies with Glenville Hargreaves (Professor at the Royal Academy of Music).
Based in London, Sarah Denbee is a versatile mezzo soprano. She enjoys balancing a mixture of opera, oratorio, song recitals, consort singing and at weddings. She sings with the Monteverdi Choir (Director: John Eliot Gardiner) and other professional choirs, touring extensively. She is a very experienced concert and oratorio soloist and has performed a great deal of the core oratorio repertoire, and she was a semi-finalist in the London Handel Festival's prestigious Singing Competition in 2015. She recently performed step out solos with the London Symphony Orchestra in Europe and at the Barbican, and she sang Erster Geist in Robert Schumann's Manfred with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the 2016 Edinburgh International Festival.
She was an Iford Opera Young Artistr, and her opera credits include Dorabella in W.A. Mozart's Così fan tutte (Opera Lyrica & HGO), Mere Marie in Francis Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites (Fulham Opera), Fanny Price in Jonathan Dove's Mansfield Park (HGO), Marcellina and cover Cherubino in W.A. Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (Weimar Opera Studio), Maurya in Riders to the Sea (Opera Holloway), the Witch in Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel (Edinburgh Festival), Mrs Grose in Benjamin Britten's Turn of the Screw (Moon Little Theatre), 3rd Lady in W.A. Mozart's Magic Flute (TCM & week-long workshop with Simon McBurney, Complicite), roles at the Tete a Tete Opera Festival, the Sorceress in Dido, Spirit in Dido, the Mistress of the Novices in Suor Angelica, Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, La Messeggera in L'Orfeo, Tilly in Stephen McNeff's The Secret Garden: UK Premiere, Vera Boronel in Menotti's The Consul and scenes as Erika in Samuel Barber's Vanessa.
Sarah Denbee has performed as a soloist in some of the UK's foremost concert venues, such as the Cadogan Hall, the Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, St. John's Smith Square, and the Millennium Centre in Cardiff. She has performed extensively internationally with the Monteverdi Choir and other professional ensembles.
Other highlights include performing as a soloist at the Cadogan Hall, soloist in the London Handel Festival. Sarah Denbee sang in the Chorus at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in Gluck's Orphée et Euridice,. She sang at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in the Chorus for their 2016 season in David McVicar's production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Melly Still's production of The Cunning Little Vixen; she is a freelance Chorus member for Scottish Opera, an Extra Chorus member for Opera North, and she was in the Chorus for a production of Gluck's Orphée et Euridice at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden which opened their 2015-2016 season with Juan Diego Flórez in the title role. |
