Jennifer Walker

jenny.walker@cansing.org.uk

Jennifer displayed an exceptional talent for music at an early age. She graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama with the highest possible honours in July 2006, winning almost all of the college’s prizes for both performance and academia. She subsequently completed her Masters degree in performance at RWCMD, supported by a full scholarship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and has won numerous prestigious prizes, including the Russel Sheppard Memorial Scholarship, Geraint Evans Scholarship and the Prize of the Province of Noord Brabant in the International Vocal Concours in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Holland).

Jennifer has made her solo debut at many of the UK’s leading concert venues and has recorded several solos for BBC Radio 3, including First Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Britten’s Hymn to St Cecilia and most recently A.M.D.G (Britten). Operatic credits include the title role in the World Premiere of Brian Irvine’s The Tailor’s Daughter for the Youth Company of Welsh National Opera, the title role in Cendrillon (Massanet) at RWCMD, Denise (Veronique – Messager) for Buxton Festival Opera, Cousin in Madama Butterfly (Puccini) for Grange Park Opera.

For New London Opera Players / Secret Opera she performed both Mimi in Puccini’s La Bohème and Violetta in La Traviata and Gretel in their touring production of Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel. More recently she sang Micaela (Carmen) for Opera Commedia and completed a concert tour of the UK with Magical Mozart by Candlelight. Last year she sang the role of ‘Shepherd Boy’ (Tosca) in Abu Dhabi alongside Bryn Terfel and has recently returned from a trip to Morocco with Welsh National Opera. She recently performed the soprano solo in ‘And Death Shall Have No Dominion’ (Maconchy) for BBC Radio 3. 

In 2018 she co-founded Opera Boots (Bringing Our Opera To Schools) and has since been working with schools and festivals to offer young people opportunities to perform alongside professional opera singers. Their productions to date include Puss in Boots (Cui), Hansel and Gretel (Humperdinck) and in 2020 a new commission of the fairy tale Rumplestiltskin with composer Helen Woods, which has been converted to film so that children could still access opera during the Covid pandemic.

Jennifer works extensively in education and outreach, leading and supporting projects for Welsh National Opera, the BBC National Chorus of Wales, CânSing, Arts Active, Ty Cerdd and the National Youth Choir of Wales. She is also the Head of Vocal Studies at The King’s School, Gloucester. During lockdown 2020 she was part of the creative team and cast for WNO’s ‘A Song for the Future’, premiered in January 2021.