Anna Huntley
Born in Stockton-on-Tees in 1982, in 2002 Anna won a full scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. She graduated in 2006 with a 1st Class Honours Degree and went on to join the Benjamin Britten International Opera School at the Royal College of Music where she was supported by a Sir Jack Ackroyd Award and Sir Thomas Allen Scholarship.
In 2011 Anna won 3rd Prize at the Das Lied International song Competition in Berlin, was selected for the public rounds in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and won the Wigmore Hall/Independent Opera Vocal Fellowship at the Wigmore Hall International song Competition. Previous prizes and awards included an Independent Opera Fellowship (2009), the Michael Oliver Prize in the London Handel Singing Competition (2009), the Douglas Craig Opera Bursary (2009), the Hampshire Singing Prize, Oxford Recital and Musicians Benevolent Fund Education Awards. She was selected for representation by YCAT in 2012.
In 2013 Anna joins Welsh National Opera covering the role of Suzuki (Madam Butterfly) and takes the roles of Irene in Cambridge Handel Opera’s production ofAtalanta and Rosina (Barber of Seville) with Opera Brava. On the concert platform she performs of Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été and Berio Folksongs with the Hebrides Ensemble at Bath International Festival, and gives recitals at the Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall, Spitalfields, Brighton and the North Norfolk Music Festivals.
Previous operatic work has included the cover of Dido/Sorceress in After Didobased on Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas for English National Opera, the cover of Alto Role in Wolfgang Rihm’s Jacob Lenz for English National Opera; Hermia (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) for English Touring Opera & Dorabella (Cosi fan tutte) for English Chamber Opera. She was a member of Glyndebourne Festival Chorus in 2008.
During her studies roles included Ramiro (La Finta Giardinera), Angelina (Cenerentola) and Mignon (Mignon) for BBIOS; Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro) for Dartington Summer School, Isabella (L’Italiana in Algeri) at the XXIV Festival Internationale de Musica Cinque Terre; Cis (Albert Herring) for British Youth Opera, Sesto (Giulio Cesare) and Stewardess (Dove’s Flight) at the RAM.
Recent concert appearances include recitals at Wigmore Hall and the Musikverein, concerts with Graham Johnson as part of BBC Radio 3’s Schubert week and a performance of Schumann’s Frauenliebe und leben as part of the launch of a new group called Songsmiths. She has also undertaken a Barbican Residency working on a one-woman show.
On the concert platform she has appeared as soloist in Bach’s B Minor Masswith Trevor Pinnock, Handel’s The Choice of Hercules with Daniel Taylor and Laurence Cummings, Haydn’s St. Nicholas Mass in the King’s Lynn Festival with the European Union Chamber Orchestra and sung Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Colne Philharmonic Orchestra.