Teresa Berganza VargasOAXS was a Spanish mezzo-soprano. She is most closely associated with roles such as Rossini's Rosina and La Cenerentola, and later Bizet's Carmen, admired for her technical virtuosity, musical intelligence, and beguiling stage presence.
John Nicholas Maw was a British composer. Among his works are the operas The Rising of the Moon (1970) and Sophie's Choice (2002).
Dame Judith Weir is a British composer. She served as Master of the King's Music from 2014 to 2024. Appointed by Queen Elizabeth II, Weir was the first woman to hold this office.
Edward Norman Hay was a Northern Irish composer and music critic.
Ann Murray is an Irish mezzo-soprano.
Margaret Burke Sheridan was an Irish opera singer. Born in Castlebar, County Mayo, she was known as Maggie from Mayo and is regarded as Ireland's second prima donna, after Catherine Hayes (1818–1861).
Florence Cole Talbert-McCleave, also known as Madame Florence Cole-Talbert, was an American operatic soprano, music educator, and musician. Called "The First Lady in Grand Opera" by the National Negro Opera Guild, she was one of the first African American women and black opera artists performing abroad who received success and critical acclaim in classical and operatic music in the 20th century. Through her career as a singer, a music educator, and an active member of the National Association of Negro Musicians, she became a legendary figure within the African American music community, also earning the titles of "Queen of the Concert Stage" and "Our Divine Florence."
Mairead Buicke is an Irish operatic soprano active in concert and recital work as well as opera. She is currently a Company Principal with the English National Opera and a member of their Young Singers Programme. She started taking singing lessons at 14 and in 2003 graduated from the Royal Irish Academy of Music with a First-class honours degree in Performance. In 2004 she was a special prize winner in the Belvedere International Singing Competition in Vienna as well as winning the Gervase Elwes Cup at Dublin's Feis Ceoil festival.
Joyce DiDonato is an American opera singer and recitalist. A coloratura mezzo-soprano, she has performed operas and concert works spanning from the 19th-century Romantic era to those by Handel and Mozart.
Roderick Gregory Coleman Williams OBE is a British baritone and composer.
Rhona Clarke is an Irish composer and pedagogue.
Tara Erraught is an Irish mezzo-soprano, a graduate of the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM).
Carly Paoli is a British classically trained singer, born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England.
Cara O'Sullivan was an Irish coloratura soprano singer.
Svetlina Stoyanova is a Bulgarian operatic mezzo-soprano.
James Cooksey Culwick was an English musician who is most well known for being organist of the Chapel Royal and founding the Orpheus Choir, both in Dublin, Ireland. The Culwick Choral Society is both named in honour of Culwick and traces its lineage to the Orpheus Choir.
Beth Taylor is a Scottish operatic mezzo-soprano, who has performed mainly in Europe. At the Oper Frankfurt, she performed a title role in Rossini's Bianca e Falliero.
Aimee Banks is an Irish soprano from Moycullen, in County Galway. She represented Ireland at the 2015 Junior Eurovision Song Contest, singing Réalta na Mara,, a song which she co-wrote and composed with Niall Mooney, Jonas Gladnikoff and Brendan McCarthy. In 2022, she was awarded the Irené Sandford Award for Singers by the Royal Irish Academy of Music.
