Alice Coote, mezzo-soprano

Renowned for her interpretations on the great recital, concert and opera stages of the world, Alice Coote's career has taken her from her beginnings in the north of England (born in Cheshire), singing in local festivals and playing oboe in the Cheshire Youth Orchestra, to being regarded as one of the great artists of today.

She trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Royal Northern College of Music and The National Opera Studio, receiving during this time the Decca Kathleen Ferrier Prize and the Brigitte Fassbaender Prize for Lieder Interpretation. The recital platform is central to her musical life. Alice performs throughout the UK, Europe and the US at the Wigmore Hall, the BBC Proms, the Concertgebouw, the Lincoln Centre and the Carnegie Hall, among many other prestigious venues. Recently, she has performed Schubert’s Winterreise at the Wigmore Hall and at ‘’The Stars of the White Nights’’ Mariinsky Festival in St Petersburg, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Netherlands Philharmonic in Amsterdam and with the London Philharmonia at the Royal Festival Hall. Judith Weir's The Voice of Desire was written for her. She toured Europe in La Clemenza di Tito with Louis Langrée and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and was a resident artist at both Wigmore Hall and the BBC Proms, where she performed with Julius Drake, the London Philharmonic as well as with the Hallé Orchestra.

Acclaimed in particular for Mahler, Berlioz, Mozart, Händel and Bach with orchestras such as London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Radio Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic, Concert D'Astrée, Hallé and Concertgebouw; she has collaborated with conductors such as Gergiev, Dohnanyi, Belohavek, Elder, Boulez and Järvi.

Coote spends a large part of her time engaged in the UK and abroad interpreting male and female roles, such as Dejanira Hercules, Le Prince Charmant Cendrillon, Carmen, Charlotte Werther, Dorabella Cosí¬ fan Tutte, Lucretia The Rape of Lucretia, Marguerite Damnation de Faust, Penelope Ulysses, Octavian Der Rosenkavalier, Composer Ariadne, Orfeo, Idamante Idomeneo, Poppea as well as Nerone L’incoronazione di Poppea, Hänsel Hänsel und Gretel, Sesto La Clemenza di Tito, Sesto Giulio Cesare, Maffio Orsini Lucretia Borgia, Ruggiero Alcina and the title role in Ariodante. She has performed these roles at Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, English National Opera, Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera House. In Europe she has appeared at the Opéra de Paris and the Théí¢tre des Champs-Elysées, in Amsterdam, Geneva, Munich, Frankfurt and Salzburg. US appearances include the Chicago Lyric Opera, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto and the Met.

Recent engagements include Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Rí¼ckertlieder with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Les nuits d'été with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Leonora in La Favorite at the Théí¢tre des Champs-í‰lysées in Paris and Sesto in Giulio Cesare at New York’s Met. She also recently performed in the opening concert of the Mostly Mozart Festival’ in New York.

Highlights of her operatic calendar for the 2013/14 season include Anne Strewson in the Met’s premiere production of Nico Muhly’s Two Boys, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier also at the Met, Le Prince Charmant in Cendrillon at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona; she will return to the role of Octavian at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich as well as in Birmingham with the CBSO and will perform Dejanira in Hercules with the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. She will also hold various recitals both in Europe and the US at the Wiener Konzerthaus, in San Francisco and at Carnegie Hall among others.