Nathalie Chalkley

Nathalie Chalkley was born in Bristol and is currently studying at Royal Academy Opera with Lillian Watson and Audrey Highland. Recent successes whilst at the Academy include receiving the G Embley Memorial Prize and the RAM Friends Award, second place in the Elena Gerhardt Lieder Prize, Isabel Jay and Blyth Buesst Opera Prizes, and reaching the final of the Richard Lewis Competition. She is generously supported by the John Thaw Trust, Musicians Benevolent Fund (Sybil Tutton Award) and the Josephine Baker trust.

Her recent concert engagements include performing for Paul Spicer in Handel’s Judas Maccabeaus at St. John’s Smith Square with the Whitehall Choir and London Baroque Sinfonia and singing at the Foundling Museum, Brunswick Square with the English Concert under Harry Bicket and Laurence Cummings. As a member of the Academy’s Song Circle Nathalie performed a recital of pre-Schubert Lieder at the Austrian Cultural Forum earlier this year.

On the operatic stage Nathalie has recently performed the Vixen in The Cunning Little Vixen for Royal Academy Scenes conducted by Dominic Wheeler and played the role of Susanna for Opera Gold. She has just completed her first season with Garsington Opera; covering in Le nozze di Figaro and singing with the Garsington Chorus for Rossini’s Armida. Future operatic engagements include playing the Second Nymph for BYO’s production of Peri’s Eurydice and covering Despina for Royal Academy Opera.

Nathalie works as a session musician performing with a diverse range of contemporary recording artists. These include being the resident Soprano for A~M*P and recording on the debut albums of Mel Brown, Toby Wainwright Johns and Matthew Winkworth. She has also worked closely with contemporary composer Andrew Morris who, following her performance of Flute of Interior Time, composed his next piece, The Darkness of Night, for her. They premiered the work together at Dartington Summer School in 2007.