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Biography

Catriona Morison, Scottish mezzo-soprano based in Berlin, became known to a wider audience in 2017 when she won the Main Prize as well as the shared Song Prize of the internationally renowned BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition. At that time, she was an ensemble member of the Wuppertal Opera for two seasons (2016-2018), where she added a variety of interesting roles to her repertoire, including Nicklausse (Les contes d'Hoffmann), Charlotte (Werther), Hänsel (Hänsel und Gretel), Maddalena (Rigoletto), Little Arab (Juliette) Princess Clarice (The Love for Three Oranges) and Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro). Guest engagements in opera have taken her to the Edinburgh International Festival, Cologne Opera, Bergen National Opera, Hamburg State Opera and Weimar National Theatre, among others. In 2015 she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival under Franz Welser-Möst as a member of the Young Singers Project and in the same year at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival.

In the 2022/23 season, the artist will expand her repertoire with two important roles: in Braunschweig she can be heard as Fricka in Rheingold, and she returns to Opera Wuppertal as Nerone in Monteverdi's L’incoronazione di Poppea.

Concert repertoire holds a special place for Catriona Morison. In summer 2019 she made her BBC Proms debut, performing Elgar's Sea Pictures with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Elim Chan. She also sang the world premiere of Errollyn Wallen's This Frame is Part of the Painting also at the BBC Proms, a work commissioned for her. The artist continues to tour internationally in 2022/23: With Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi in Copenhagen, with Mahler's Klagendem Lied with the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto under Stefan Blunier, with the world premiere of Detlev Glanert's Prague Symphony with the Czech Philharmonic under Semjon Bychkov in Prague as well as with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, with Mozart's Requiem under Manfred Honeck with both the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. She can also be heard in Cologne with the Gürzenich Orchestra under Julien Chauvin in Pergolesi's Stabat Mater.

Song is of particular importance to Catriona Morison, as documented by her latest CD with songs by E. Grieg, J. Brahms, Josephine Lang and R. Schumann, alongside Malcolm Martineau. She has performed at the Wigmore Hall, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Leeds Lieder Festival, the Oxford Lieder Festival and the Schubertíada Vilabertran as well as at the Heidelberger Frühling, in Madrid and Barcelona. Her debut recital at Opera Frankfurt in spring 2022 was praised by the press:

"Almost seamless connections of the registers, a warm, earthy sound colouration in the sung chest tone, declamatory features in the lower range and excellent text comprehensibility were the technical trump cards that Morison knew how to play. In doing so, she sounded out the word-sound relationship of the compositions profoundly, penetrating perceptibly into layers of interpretation that can only be presented through a serious elaboration of text and music alike."

(FAZ March 30, 2022)