British soprano Caroline Taylor graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music with Distinction, where she won the Joyce and Michael Kennedy Award for Singing of Strauss. She was a finalist and special prize winner in the 2025 International Haydn Competition and winner of the Armitage Audience Prize at the 2025 Northern Aldborough Festival’s New Voices Competition. A keen performer of Czech repertoire, Caroline won the Emmy Destinn Award for Czech Opera and Song and the Off West End Opera Performance Award with Hampstead Garden Opera for Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, in which she played the title role. She is a City Music Foundation Artist, a Song Easel Young Artist and a Making Music UK Recommended Artist for 2025-2027.
Praised for her “glittering soprano” (The Times), Caroline’s most recent and future engagements include Violetta La Traviata (Hurn Court Opera), Suor Genovieffa Suor Angelica (Dorset Opera Festival), Countess The Marriage of Figaro (Cumbria Opera Festival), Fauré Requiem and Poulenc Gloria at the Caird Hall, Dundee, Mozart Requiem at the Oxford International Song Festival, Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem and Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang at Bath Abbey both under Gavin Carr and Beethoven Symphony No. 9 under Stephen Threlfall. A keen recitalist, she recently made her recital debut at the Two Moors Festival alongside tenor Nicky Spence OBE and pianist Roger Vignoles. In 2026/2027, Caroline returns to the Two Moors Festival and to the role of Countess in her European house debut.
Recent concerts include her recital debut at the Royal Ballet and Opera accompanied by Fran Hills, a solo recital comprising Strauss’ Brentano Lieder with Roger Vignoles at Goldsmiths’ Hall and Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri (Peri) at the Caird Hall. Caroline and duo partner pianist Sebastian Issler completed their first UK and European recital tour in 2025 and visit further venues next season.
Further opera credits include La Musica L’Orfeo (Longborough Festival Opera), Lauretta Gianni Schicchi (RNCM Opera), Helena The Enchanted Island (British Youth Opera), She Cupboard Love, Governess The Turn of the Screw and Miss Wordsworth Albert Herring (Byre Opera), Sara in the World Premiere of Ben Kaye and Adam Gorb’s The Path to Heaven (RNCM, Psappha) and a number of leading Gilbert & Sullivan roles. Caroline has enjoyed particular success in the roles of Vixen Sharp-Ears (HGOpera, Longborough – cover, Barnes Music Festival), Asteria Tamerlano (Cambridge Handel Opera, Grange Festival) and Adina The Elixir of Love (Brunswick Vocal Arts, Duchy Opera, King’s Head Theatre), with Opera Magazine hailing her “astonishing veracity and persuasiveness”.
Concert highlights include Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with the Northern Chamber Orchestra, Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Northern Ballet Sinfonia, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at the Bridgewater Hall, broadcast on BBC Radio 3; and solo performances at Wigmore Hall, St James’s Piccadilly, St Martin in the Fields, Sinfonia Smith Square and the Holywell Music Room. Caroline is a former Concordia Foundation Artist, member of the Wigmore Hall French Song Exchange and Oxford International Song Festival Young Artist with duo partner pianist George Ireland.
Prior to her musical studies, Caroline completed an MA (Hons) in French, Italian and Spanish at the University of St Andrews, comprising an Erasmus year abroad at Université Paris-IV Sorbonne. She graduated as the recipient of the Cedric Thorpe Davie Memorial Prize for outstanding contribution to music and theatre.
Biography for information only; not to be reproduced
Caroline Taylor 