biography

Esther Brazil h

as recently gained an MA (distinction) at the Royal Academy of

Music, where she

studied with Anne Howells and Iain Ledingham, generously

supported by full scholarships in both years from the Kohn Foundation and the

Lucille Graham trust.

From 2005-2008, s

he held a held a choral scholarship at The Queen’s College,

Oxford, where she appeared frequently in major roles in student opera and did

extensive solo concert work, appearing notably as the soprano soloist in

Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the Monteverdi Vespers, and Bach’s Mass in B

Minor with the London Handel Orchestra.

She now sings regularly with the

Monteverdi Choir

under Sir John Eliot

Gardiner, with whom she has recently toured Europe as both alto and soprano

soloist in Bach's Mass in B Minor, Monteverdi's Vespers, and a series of Bach’s

Advent Cantatas, and with whom she will shortly perform solos in Schumann’s

Manfred

and

Requiem for Mignon

in a tour of Italy and Spain.

In November she will appear as a soloist with the

Orchestra of the Age of

Enlightenment

in a performance of Handel’s Dixit Dominus. She is a also busy

consort singer in London,

performing

with The Sixteen, Tenebrae, Polyphony,

the OAE, and the Marian Consort.

Recent concert performances have included Monteverdi madrigals with La Nuova

Musica at the Spitalfields Festival, Dvorak's Love Songs cycle with the Royal

Academy Soloists string orchestra, Schumann's Opus 40 cycle

Funf Lieder.

Roles have included

Erika

(Vanessa),

Sesto

(Clemenza di Tito),

Octavian

(Der

Rosenkavalier), and

Minkswoman

(Flight) in the RAM's Vocal Faculty Opera

Scenes. At Oxford, roles included

Lauretta

(Gianni Schicchi),

Juno

(The

Judgment of Paris),

Grand Duchess of Monteblanco

(A Dinner Engagement),

Sorceress

(Dido and Aeneas),

Iris/Hummingbird

(The Birds), and

Euridi

(

L'Orfeo

, Monteverdi). She appeared in 2011 as

Rosina

The Barber of Seville

to sell-out aud

iences at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, and covered the role of

Mrs Slender

in Salieri’s

Falstaff

for the New Chamber Opera. She currently

studies with Susan Roberts.