Canadian soprano Gillian Keith, winner of this year's Kathleen Ferrier Awards, studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Ian Partridge after taking a degree in Piano Performance from McGill University in Montréal, and following private vocal studies with soprano Ann Monoyios.
At the Royal Academy she won the main prizes for Lieder, Russian and French Song and Early Music, and upon graduation was awarded the Dip.RAM and the prize for Best Final Recital.
She is a recent recipient of the Tillet Trust Award, and was the winner of the vocal category in the 1998 Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition.
Ms Keith is much in demand as an oratorio singer and this year is performing regularly with Sir John Eliot Gardiner on his Bach Cantata Pilgrimage. Other recent oratorio performances have included Finzi's Dies Natalis (both in the Amersham Festival and the Isleworth Festival), a recording for Bavarian Radio of Hasse's oratorio Il Cantico de tre Fanciulli, and a performance of Bach Cantatas with Christ Church Baroque in Dublin.
As chamber musician and recitalist, recent highlights have included performances with countertenor Paul Esswood and The Musicke Companye in the UK and abroad, Nicholas Maw's La vita nuova with the Manson Ensemble, Britten's Les Illuminations at the Royal Academy of Music and Tavener's Akhmatova Songs in Dublin's Mansion House. Ms Keith, along with her accompanist Simon Lepper, was chosen to perform in this year's Young Songmakers Almanac concert at St John's Smith Square, London. Ms Keith and Mr Lepper have also recently performed at Fairfield Hall in Croydon as a result of their award from the Tillet Trust. Future commitments include song recitals in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Harrogate Festival and Canterbury Festival, a concert performance of Purcell's Fairy Queen in St Paul's Chichester, Bach's Christmas Oratorio in the Bath Festival and a performance with the Tallis Scholars.
"And Keith certainly knew how to communicate. Her engagement with Shakespeare's words as they were new-born in Richard Strauss's setting of the Three Ophelia Songs was intense. And she played on her voice as on an instrument, shaping and colouring the melodic line in its every nuance. "
- Hilary Finch, The Times
For further information, see www.classicalperformers.com/gilliankeith