Under the spotlight in today’s Samling Artist Profile is soprano Rowan Pierce.
Rowan comes from Saltburn-by-the-Sea and is currently studying at the Royal College of Music. A winner of the Major van Someren-Godfrey Prize at the RCM, she also won the first Schubert Society Singer Prize at the London Song Festival in 2014.
Rowan took part in the first year of Samling Academy in 2012 – our regional initiative for young singers in the North East of England – and is the first of our Academy participants to return to us as a young professional to take part in Samling Artist Programme.
Rowan also sang principal roles in both Samling Academy Opera productions to date: Miss Wordsworth in Albert Herring (2013) and La princesse in L’enfant et les sortilèges (2015). The Guardian wrote of this production that ‘the quality of voices on display is consistently remarkable, though Rowan Pierce especially dazzles’.
Rowan will be joined by seven other Samling Artists in a public Masterclass and Concert on Saturday 27 February at Sage Two, Sage Gateshead, led by internationally-renowned mezzo Ann Murray DBE, the great German baritone Olaf Bär and Royal Opera House pianist Caroline Dowdle.