Lucy Taylor
Lucy Taylor (mezzo soprano, Arsamene in Serse, Andronico in Tamerlano) was a choral exhibitioner at Clare College, Cambridge, where she read Modern and Medieval Languages. She studied voice with Patricia MacMahon as a Caird Scholar at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where she won the Governors' Recital and John Ireland Prizes and graduated with the MMus in Advanced Opera. She has performed numerous operatic roles, including Arsamene in Handel's Serse with the Cambridge Handel Opera Group; Larina in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin with Britten-Pears Opera; and Diana in La Calisto and Maurya in Vaughan Williams's Riders to the Sea at the RSAMD. She also shadowed Dorabella in the recent Scottish Opera production of Mozart's Così fan tutte. Oratorio and recital work figure largely in her repertoire: engagements have included Bach's Magnificat and Vivaldi's Gloria with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Bach's St Matthew Passion at Trinity College, Cambridge, the UK première of Douglas Coombes's Requiem, a concert of Scots songs with the Orchestra of St John's, Smith Square, and recitals in the Queen's Hall and the Hub in Edinburgh. She recently performed as alto soloist for a tour and recording of Mahler's Second Symphony with the Internationale Junge Orchesterakademie, which included performances in the Markgraefliches Opernhaus, Bayreuth, and the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. Lucy is now based in Cambridge; her plans include recitals and oratorios around the UK, and continuing projects with Live Music Now!, the organisation founded by Sir Yehudi Menuhin to promote the work of young musicians and bring live music at a professional level into the wider community, and with the Concordia Foundation, as well as further participation in the Britten-Pears Young Artists' Programme, which will involve the preparation and performance of Bach cantatas under Andreas Scholl.