Holly is a 23 year old Soprano who has been studying with Catherine Benson since 2015. She is currently completing her Undergraduate degree at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where she received an unconditional offer to study with scholarship in 2016. In addition to lessons with Cathy, Holly also receives lessons privately with Amanda Roocroft, and from September 2018, finance depending (!) will be splitting her third year of study between Birmingham and CNSMD (Conservatoire de Paris), where she has been awarded a place to study with Elene Golgevit. An active performer both at college and externally, Holly's enthusiasm and dedication to music has encouraged her to explore a vast range of repertoire and gifted her ample performance experience already as a result. At the end of her second year, competition highlights include Finalist in the Cecil Drew Oratorio Prize, Finalist in the Stuart Cameron-Smith American Song Prize, Finalist in the Winifred Michlam Prize and Finalist in the Junior Kathleen Ferrier Bursary Award (inter-college competition). In addition to departmental vocal engagements, recent public recital repertoire includes Shubert's Die Hirt auf dem Felsen, Shumann's Frauenliebe und Leben and Barber's Hermit Songs. Opera roles so far include Jenny Diver A Beggar's Opera, Britten (RBC), Countess Almaviva Le Nozze de Figaro, Mozart (NWOS - staged scenes) and Michaela Carmen, Bizet (NWOS - staged scenes). Over summer 2018, Holly will be attending workshops run by British Youth Opera at the Southbank Centre, where she will be working on her own selection of repertoire titled "Mostly Mozart!" with recital material and audition preparation in mind. An advocate for historically informed performance practice, in February of this year, Holly teamed up with lutanist/theorbo player Myles Payne. Together, they have created a recital programme which includes a mix of Renaissance lute song repertoire both in English and Italian, creatively titled "Not So Old Fashioned." Interrupted slightly by Holly's departure for "La Vie Parisienne," they hope to record a full album of Campion and Dowland favourites, and tour their programme further in Spring of 2019. Originally from Shropshire, Holly's route to singing was not completely conventional. From primary school to late teens, she learnt to play the violin and the piano, before taking four years out of education and mostly away from music whilst she reassessed. Holly had never really sung whilst growing up, but after an epiffany involving a story-telling workshop in leafy Herefordshire, she realised that for her, text had been missing from music, and set about three months of intensive lessons with Anne Williams-King before auditioning at Birmingham. Now fully established as a singer and a confident performer, in addition to her own studies Holly also enjoys teaching; both singing one to one privately, as well as class singing and drama lessons. Her excitement for literature plays a big part in her love of opera and song, and this is translated across every genre and style. Holly currently leads the "Let Us Sing" courses at the MAC in Birmingham, and is the Singing and Drama teacher for Central Stage in Burton-Upon-Trent.