Karen Cargill

Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow, the  University of Toronto and the National Opera Studio in London and was the joint winner of the 2002 Kathleen Ferrier Award.

Recent and future concert highlights include Mahler Symphony No 8 and Schönberg Gurrelieder with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle; Berlioz Les nuits d’étés with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Robin Ticciati; Beethoven Symphony No 9 with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Myung Whun Chung and The Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Bernard Haitink and Elgar The Dream of Gerontius with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and James Judd.

Future opera plans include her US opera debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York with James Levine singing Waltraute Götterdämmerung, (which she will also sing at the Deutsches Oper, Berlin), and Anna Les Troyens. She will also make her Royal Opera, Covent Garden debut singing First Norn in their Ring Cycle with Anthony Pappano. Karen has also appeared with Scottish Opera as Rosina in Rossini The Barber of Seville and Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri and with English National Opera as Suzuki Madam Butterfly.

Regular UK appearances include concerts with the BBC Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Hallé, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, London Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestras. In the 2009/10 season she was artist in Association of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra where she sang Berlioz La Mort de Cléopâtre and L’enfance
du Christ and Wagner Wesendonck Lieder. BBC Proms concerts have included Mahler Symphony No 3 with the BBCSSO and Donald Runnicles; Mendelssohn Elijah with Kurt Masur; Constant Lambert The Rio Grande at a ‘Last Night’ and Waltraute and Mahler Das Lied von der Erde, also with Donald Runnicles.

Past highlights have included Beethoven Symphony No 9 in New York with Bernard Haitink, Berlioz L’enfance du Christ and Verdi Requiem with the LSO and Sir Colin Davis in London, both recorded for LSO Live; Waltraute  Götterdämmerung with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Rattle; Berlioz Les nuits d’été with the LPO and with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra; Brahms Alto Rhapsody with the Hallé Orchestra; Mahler Symphony No 2 with the LSO and Symphony No 3 at the Tanglewood Festival, both with Michael Tilson Thomas; Symphony No 2 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and James Levine and at the 2011 Edinburgh Festival with the BBCSSO and Donald Runnicles; Symphony No 3 with Yannick Nézet-Séquin and the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Myung Whun Chung and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestras; Tippett A Child of our Time with Robin Ticciati in Rotterdam and Vienna; Mahler Rückert Lieder with both the Residentie Orchestra and the BBCSSO and Beethoven Missa Solemnis with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Donald Runnicles.

Karen has appeared at Wigmore Hall in recital with Simon Lepper and in concert with the Nash Ensemble and will return for a duo recital with Sally Matthews and Simon Lepper, which they will also perform at the Concertgebouw. Other recent recital appearances have included Brahms Songs Op 91 with Maxim Rysanov and Katya Apekisheva as part of the BBC Lunchtime Concert Series at LSO St. Luke's, London.