Grace Durham

Highlights of her opera career have further included Mercédès Carmen and Second Maid Elektra at the Opéra du Capitole – Toulouse Métropole; Kuchtík Rusalka for Garsington Opera at Wormsley (also at the Edinburgh International Festival); Priestess Iphigénie en Tauride at Opéra national de Lorraine; Second Lady Die Zauberflöte and Giovanna Rigoletto for Zurich Opera; Rosina Il barbiere di Siviglia for Lyric Opera, Dublin;and Sadoc in Traetta’s Rex Salomon at the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik.

Regular concert engagements have included Chausson Poème de l’Amour et de la Mer with the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz and Mendelssohn Ein Sommernachtstraum with Jenaer Philharmonie at Festival Murten Classics; Mozart Requiem on tour with Orchestre de Picardie; Ravel Shéhérazade with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra; Scarlatti Stabat Mater with Ensemble Le Caravansérail; and Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music with the Nash Ensemble at the Wigmore Hall.

With Les Talens Lyriques, she appeared in From Purcell with Love (Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik), Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment (Staatsoper Berlin, Festival AntiquaBZ) and as Job’s Wife in Gregor Joseph Werner’s Job with Les Talens Lyriques at the Haydneum in Budapest. For Les Musicens du Louvre, she covered the title role in Ariodante.

Contemporary credits include Talking Music, the première performances of Philip Venables’ Numbers 81-85 and Numbers 96-100 at the Festival Musica, Strasbourg, and the Festival d’Automne, Paris, and the world première of Michelle Agnes Magalhaes The Word with Collectif Lovemusic; and the world première of Michelle Agnes Magalhaes’ Après la Tempête, a songbook for Shakespeare with L’Itinéraire at Festival Messiaen.

A committed recitalist, she has appeared at the Opéra national de Bordeaux, the Opéra de Lille, the Opéra de Montpellier, the Musée d’Orsay, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and, with the Académie-Orsay Royaumont, at London’s Wigmore Hall. Her recordings include Aimer à loisir, singing songs by Chausson, Fauré and Ravel, with Edward Liddall on B Records.

As a member of the Junges Ensemble at the Semperoper Dresden, her roles included Mercédès Carmen, Lucienne Die tote Stadt, Cherubino Le nozze di Figaro, Second Lady Die Zauberflöte, Flora Bervoix La traviata and Clare in the German première of Philip Venables’ 4.48 Psychosis.

Grace Durham began her studies as a linguist, graduating with a First-Class Honours Degree in French and Italian from Clare College, Cambridge. The recipient of an Independent Opera Voice Scholarship, she continued her training as a singer at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the National Opera Studio. She continues her studies with Valérie Guillorit.