Gillian Keith

Gillian performed with the Cantate Choir in the Mozart Requiem concert in March 2006.

Since winning the Kathleen Ferrier Award in 2000 Canadian soprano Gillian Keith has earned a reputation as a versatile singer, equally at home in concert, recital and opera, and appears frequently with leading orchestras and conductors throughout the world. Recent performances include Messiah at the Halle Handel Festival in Germany, Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Northern Sinfonia, Handel’s Deborah with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Bach’s St Matthew Passion with King’s Consort, Mozart’s Mass in C minor with The Sixteen, Bach solo cantatas with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas McGegan, Messiah with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Stephen Layton, Bach Magnificat with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra/Robert King, John Tavener’s Schuon Lieder with the Schubert Ensemble and Handel’s Silete Venti at the Handel in Oxford Festival. Her recordings include Debussy: Early Songs for Deux-Elles, Purcell The Tempest for Naxos, Handel Gloria (Philips) and Bach Cantatas (Gardiner/Soli Deo Gloria).

She made her Royal Opera début as Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream under Richard Hickox. Other roles have included Nannetta Falstaff (English National Opera), Dew Fairy/Hansel and Gretel (BBC Proms), Sylvia/Ascanio in Alba and Lole/Hercules (Buxton Festival), Poppea (Theater Basel), Woodbird/Siegfried, Papagena/Magic Flute and Amor Orfeo ed Euridice (all for Scottish Opera). She has sung soprano solo in Deborah Warner’s staging of Bach’s St John Passion for ENO, Bellezza in Handel’s Triumph of Time and Truth for Almeida Opera and Diana/La Calisto for Toronto Consort.

Highlights of this season include Haydn’s Creation in the Auditorio Nacional, Madrid and with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Manchester Camerata, the U.K. premiere of a recently discovered aria by Bach in the London Bach Festival, and Bach Cantatas with Tafelmusik. She will also appear in English National Opera’s production of Purcell’s King Arthur.