English soprano Eleanor Briggs grew up in Hereford and began singing at a young age. She trained as a Scholar at the Royal College of Music and the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, and subsequently gained an Honours degree as an oboist. Eleanor now studies voice with Teresa Cahill on the MMus course at Trinity College of Music, with coaching from Robert Aldwinckle. She is a current TCM Leverhulme Scholar, and has participated in masterclasses at TCM with Robert Tear, Rosalind Plowright and Susan Bullock. She has also sung in masterclasses with Anne Howells and Dame Kiri te Kanawa for BBC Radio 2. Eleanor was winner of the inaugural Royal Opera House/BP Singing Competition 2009, and sang live to 10,000 people at Trafalgar Square for the ROH as her prize. Her performance was also broadcast to cinema screens in fifteen locations across the UK. Other recent competition successes include winning the 2009 Making Music Alfreda Hodgson Bursary, the TCM John Ireland Competition, and the TCM Contemporary Singing Prize. Eleanor's studies are generously supported by the Elmley Foundation, the Church Street Charitable Trust, the Kathleen Trust, the Becket Bulmer Charitable Trust, the Thomas Dickinson Charity and the Lynn Foundation.
In 2009 Eleanor founded the Rose Opera Company, who received rave reviews for their inaugural production of Mozart's Apollo et Hyacinthus in which Eleanor made her directorial debut and sang the role of Melia. Other operatic roles include Pamina (Die Zauberflote), Belinda (Dido & Aeneas), Miss Wordsworth (Albert Herring), Vixen Sharp-Ears (The Cunning Little Vixen), and Philadell/Venus (King Arthur). Future engagements include First Lady (Die Zauberflote) with Hampstead Garden Opera, Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro) for Dartington International Summer School, and Lucy Lockit (The Beggar's Opera) with ROC.
For more information, please see www.eleanorbriggs.co.uk

Zoe Bonner
Soprano