Catherine Wyn-Rogers

Catherine Wyn-Rogers has established an important British singing career. She is particularly known for her work with period instrument organizations, but her repertoire includes Romantic and twentieth-century works as well. She entered the Royal College of Music in London as a Foundation Scholar. Her teacher was Meriel St. Clair. While there she won several prizes, the most prestigious being the Dame Clara Butt Award. She continued her studies with Ellis Keeler and Diane Forlano. In her home country she has worked with the Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, and the English National Opera as well as many appearances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London. Her Covent Garden roles include Magdalena in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Cornelia in Giulio Cesare, Sosostris in Tippett's A Midsummer Marriage, the Third Lady in The Magic Flute, Erda in Das Rhinegold and Siegfried, and the First Norn in Götterdämmerung. With the English National Opera she has sung Mistress Quickly in Verdi's Falstaff, Filipievna in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, La Cieca in La Gioconda, and Bianca in Britten's the Rape of Lucretia. Her Netherlands Opera debut was in Britten's Peter Grimes, and she has sung in Strauss' Arabella at the Bavarian State Opera, Munich, where her debut role was as Sosostris in the Tippett opera. It is her concert work that is strongly weighted towards Baroque and Classical performance with period instrument practitioners. These include The Sixteen under Harry Christophers, the English Concert under Trevor Pinnock, and the Academy of Ancient Music with Christopher Hogwood. In summers, she appears in such major events as the Aldeburgh Festival, the Three Choirs Festival, and the BBC Henry Woods Promenade Concerts, including a well-remembered solo turn at the Last Night in 1995. She has sung with most major British concert organizations, such as the English Chamber Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, the Royal Choral and Huddersfield Choral Societies, the Bach Choir, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonia. On the continent, she has worked with the Netherlands Radio Orchestra, the European Youth Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductors with whom she has appeared include Mackerras, Hickox, Elder, Haitink, Andrew Davis, and Rozhdestvensky. Her numerous recordings include entries in the Graham Johnson series of Schubert songs on the Hyperion label, Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music, Mozart's Vespers, Teixeira's Te Deum, John Gay's Beggar's Opera, Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius, Handel's Samson, and Haydn's Harmoniemesse.