Rachel Nicholls

Rachel Nicholls (* 1975 in Bedford , England ) is an English soprano . She is considered to be an outstanding contemporary dramatic and concert singer. As a singer, Nicholls combines a warm, lyrical voice with outstanding musical ability and a command of several languages (including German). Nicholls is married to the British bass-baritone Andrew Slater .

Career

Nicholls first studied French and linguistics at the University of York. From 1998 she studied singing with Kathleen Livingstone at the Royal College of Music in London. In 2001 she won a second prize at the “Kathleen Ferrier Award” opera singing competition in London. She has worked with conductors such as Andrew Davis , Colin Davis , John Eliot Gardiner , Valery Gergiev , Richard Hickox , Jean-Claude Malgoire and Simon Rattle , and with orchestras such as the Academy of St Martin in the Fields , BBC Symphony Orchestra , Britten Sinfonia , City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra , La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy , the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Philharmonia Orchestra London . Nicholls is currently studying Wagner's repertoire specifically with the British soprano Anne Evans . Nicholls himself teaches singing in the Music Faculty of the University of York and other institutes.

Opera

Nicholls made her operatic debut at the Royal Opera in London in 2001 as the third flower girl in Wagner's Parsifal under Sir Simon Rattle . Other roles in her operatic repertoire are Lisa in Tchaikovsky's opera Pique Dame , Sepp (Pepik) in Leoš Janáček's opera The Cunning Little Vixen , the nymph Echo in Richard Strauss' opera Ariadne auf Naxos . Rachel Nicholls particularly stands out in opera roles from Richard Wagner's work, such as Sieglinde in the Walküre and Brünnhilde in the Ring cycle .

concert

As a concert singer, Nicholls has appeared with the following orchestras, among others: Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Britten Sinfonia, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Darmstadt Hofkapelle, Florilegium, the Gdansk Music Festival, the Hanover Band, Huddersfield Choral Society, the London Handel Players, the London Mozart Players, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mikkeli City Orchestra, the Orchestra of St John's, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Le Parlement de Musique, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Nicholls has a very broad concert repertoire such as the Requiem by Verdi, the Wesendonck Lieder by Richard Wagner or the Glagolitic Mass by Janáček. Among other things, she sang Bach's B minor Mass with the Bach Collegium Japan under Masaaki Suzuki in memory of the victims of the Fukushima nuclear disaster at Valparaiso University and at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Recordings

Rachel Nicholls has recorded various Bach cantatas under the direction of Masaaki Suzuki in historical performance practice. In the cantata Dearest Jesus, My Desires BWV 32 , she acts as a soul (soprano) in conversation with Jesus (bass). The cantata ends in a gavotte, a love duet between two voices. In 2007 she recorded Bach's B minor Mass under Suzuki with Carolyn Sampson , Robin Blaze , Gerd Türk and Peter Kooy .

literature

Independent, June 7, 2015, interview with Rachel Nichols in English (British soprano Rachel Nicholls interview: How my local school helped me rise to the top)

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Year of birth according to information in an interview with Nicholls on June 7, 2015 in the Independent

personal data
SURNAME	Nicholls, Rachel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	English soprano
DATE OF BIRTH	1975
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bedford , England , UK

[1] Year of birth according to information in an interview with Nicholls on June 7, 2015 in the Independent