J S Bach B minor Mass Wells Cathedral Saturday, 10th November 2007

Rachel Nicholls  (soprano)

RACHEL NICHOLLS was born in Bedford, and read French and Linguistic Science at the University of York, furthering her studies at the Royal College of Music where she won the President's Rose Bowl for the Most Outstanding Student of the Year, the Cuthbert Smith Prize, the Lies Askonas Prize and the Van Someren Godfrey Prize for English Song. Winner of the Second Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Competition, she made her début at London’s Royal Opera as Flowermaiden Parsifal, returning as Pepik The Cunning Little Vixen, Echo Ariadne auf Naxos and Prilepa The Queen of Spades and her other operatic engagements have included Philippa in John Browne’s Babette’s Feast at the Linbury Studio Theatre, Frasquita Carmen and Flora The Knot Garden for Scottish Opera, the title role in Erismena, Ginevra Ariodante and Elisa Tolomeo for English Touring Opera, Theophano Ottone and Metella Silla at the London Handel Festival, Handel’s Susanna for The Early Opera Company, Bella Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm for Almeida Opera, Donna Elvira Don Giovanni for Mid Wales Opera, Junon Platée for T.C.C. Productions, Lisbon, Tatyana Eugene Onegin for Scottish Opera Go Round and Scottish Opera on Tour and Jessie Mahagonny Songspiel at the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte, Montepulciano.
Rachel Nicholls made her international concert début singing Messiah under the direction of Sir David Willcocks in Halle, a work she has also sung for Bach Collegium Japan. Other concert appearances include performances with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Darmstadt Hofkapelle, the Hanover Band, the London Handel Players, the London Mozart Players, the OSJ, Le Parlement de Musique and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, as well as at the Brighton, Chelsea, Fishguard, London Handel, Presteigne and Three Choirs Festivals. Conductors with whom she has worked in opera and concert include Thomas Dausgaard, Sir Colin Davis, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Valery Gergiev, Richard Hickox, Sir Simon Rattle and Masaaki Suzuki. Her broadcasts include Sally Flashmob - The Opera, Schoenberg Quartet No. 2 with the Quatuor Parisii and In Tune for the BBC, and her recordings include B Minor Mass (BIS), Metella Silla (Somm). Hummel Mass in D Minor (Chandos), Music by Cecilia McDowall (Dutton) and Paul Spicer’s Easter Oratorio (Birmingham Bach Choir).
Her current engagements include Mrs Martin La Cantatrice Chauve at the Tête-à-Tête Opera Festival, Hansel Elephant and Castle for Aldeburgh Festival Opera, Fiordiligi Così fan tutte for Longborough Festival Opera, the B Minor Mass with Bach Collegium Japan, Dvorak Stabat Mater with the BBC Concert Orchestra, Carmina Burana in Naples, Erwartung with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Il tramonto and Schönberg String Quartet No. 2 with the Quatuor Parisii, Gordon Riley’s GBH with the Scottish Philharmonic Orchestra, Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle in Rome, Verdi Requiem in King’s College, Cambridge, and Shepherd Tannhäuser at the St Endellion Festival.