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The American-born English mezzo-soprano, Esther Brazil, was educated in Beijing, Singapore, and Sydney. She was a choral scholar at The Queen’s College, Oxford, where she read Philosophy and Theology. She recently gained an Master of Art degree with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music, where she was awarded full scholarships in both years, generously provided by the Kohn Foundation and Lucille Graham Trust. She studies with Susan Roberts.
Concert highlights include appearances as a soloist with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, London Handel Orchestra, English Baroque Soloists, and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique under Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Operatic roles have included Rosina in Barber of Seville, Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas, Euridice in L’Orfeo, Mrs Slender in Salieri’s Falstaff, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, Juno in The Judgment of Paris, Grand Duchess of Monteblanco in A Dinner Engagement, Iris/Hummingbird in The Birds, and Ninfa/Proserpina in L’Orfeo; and in RAM Vocal Faculty opera scenes, Erika in Vanessa, Sesto in Clemenza di Tito, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, and Minkswoman in Flight.
Recent appearances have included George Frideric Handel's Dixit Dominus with the Brook Street Band, Ninfa/Proserpina in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo at King’s Place, solos in Robert Schumann’s Manfred with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Brighton Early Music Festival’s Live! scheme and a Christmas programme at St John’s Smith Square with Oxford Baroque, as well as solo appearances in Antonio Vivaldi's Gloria and G.F. Handel's Dixit Dominus with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She has most recently appeared as a soloist at the Royal Albert Hall with the English Baroque Soloists and Sir John Eliot Gardiner in the critically-acclaimed Bach Marathon.
Recordings have included G.F. Handel's Dixit Dominus and Alessandro Scarlatti's Dixit Dominus with the Brook Street Band, G.F. Handel's and A. Vivaldi's Dixit Dominus settings with La Nuova Musica/David Bates, Charpentier’s Reniement de Saint Pierre for Harmonia Mundi USA/La Nuova Musica, and J.S. Bach’s Ascension Cantatas with the Monteverdi Choir. She is also a founding member of Oxford Baroque, who were selected as Young Artists in the 2012 Brighton Music Festival, and opened the 2013 Christmas Festival at St John's, Smith Square. |
