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The English soprano and pianist and violinist, Hannah Dienes-Williams, was a chorister at Guildford Cathedral for 9 years, from the age of 9, serving as its Head Chorister from 2017-2018. In the choir, she featured regularly as a soloist in services and concerts as well as on two live broadcasts. She was selected as a finalist for the BBC Radio 2 Chorister of the Year competition in 2016 and 2017, was a featured soloist on tours and two CD's, and was the young soprano soloist for a Decca recording of Rebecca Dale's Materna Requiem alongside Louise Alder. She was a member of the Rodolfus Choir (Director: Ralph Allwood). She has A level results in Music, English Literature and French. She received choral scholarship, to Clare College, Cambridge to study Music (2020-2013). At Cambridge, she was also a Choral Scholar in Trinity College Choir of Cambridge (Director: Stephen Layton).
Recently, Hannah Dienes-Williams has partaken in master-classes from Neil Jenkins and John Graham Hall. Alongside her vocal studies, she also plays the violin and piano, having achieved distinctions in all three Grade 8 exams by 15, Honours in her RSCM Gold Award by 13, and more recently, Distinction in her ARSM Violin Diploma, as well as performing Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with her school orchestra. She was a member of the National Children’s Orchestra and Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra, and attends Pro Corda chamber music courses. She co-founded The Fantasma Trio and The Aristeia Quartet, the latter of which has performed in the Purcell Room and in a master-class with Alfred Brendel in Paris. Alongside this, she founded the Cavatina Chamber Choir in 2019 for a performance of Haydn’s Creation alongside Cavatina Orchestra in Guildford Cathedral.
Since starting at Cambridge, Hannah Dienes-Williams has been selected for the Pembroke Lieder Scheme in her first and second years, benefitting from regular tuition in art song from Joseph Middleton, and master-classes with Mark Padmore, Lucy Crowe and Nicky Spence. She is a frequent recitalist and particularly enjoys performing 20th century art song. In her first year, she was awarded 2nd Prize in the Clare Song Competition and a winner of the CCMS Concerto Competition in her third year. She studied with Robert Rice and Gary Coward. In 2022, she was President of Clare College’s Music Society, and the Singers’ Representative of the Cambridge University Opera Society (CUOS).
Hannah Dienes-Williams is grateful to have gained operatic experience at university including the roles of: Almirena in George Frideric Handel's Rinaldo (TCMS), Susanna in W.A. Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (CUOS, October 2021), Soprano in Venables's Denis and Katya (CUOS, November 2021), Adele in Strauss' Die Fledermaus (CUOS, February 2022), Galatea in G.F. Handel's Acis and Galatea, Ino in G.F. Handel's Semele (CUOS, October 2022), La Fée in Viardot's Cendrillon, Dido in H. Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (Clare Chapel, November 2022), Mrs P in Michael Nyman's The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat (Clare Chapel, February 2023), and Pamina in W.A. Mozart's The Magic Flute (CUOS, February 2023). Since starting at Cambridge, she has been also cast as Woman One in ‘wo women: both alike in dignity, and as Esther in G.F. Handel's Esther. She has also featured as a soprano soloist in Ottorino Respighi's Il Tramonto with Concordia Cambridge and in J.S. Bach's Johannes-Passion BWV 245.
Outside of Cambridge, Hannah Dienes-Williams is a frequent soloist with regional choral societies, having sung many oratorio works with orchestra, as well as Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 4 at St John’s Smith Square with Cavatina Orchestra (September 2021). She recently sang Harawi by Messiaen at Paris Conservatoire for a research project on (March 2023), and subsequent premiere of, Yvonne Loriod’s unpublished song cycle Grains de cendre (April 2023). Hannah also sings in the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge and is grateful for the opportunities to perform in exciting places and venues. She is grateful to her singing teachers, and the support she will receive to attend the Royal Academy of Music next year as a Masters student in Vocal Studies (since July 2023). |
