About
British Australian soprano Samantha Crawford is equally at home on the opera stage as she is on the concert platform, and who has been praised for her ‘crystalline tone and diction’ (The Arts Desk) and ‘fine cut soprano which brought singing of class’ (Opera).
Samantha made her operatic debut at the 2014 Aldeburgh and Edinburgh Festivals as Mrs. Coyle in Britten’s Owen Wingrave conducted by Mark Wigglesworth. Subsequent roles include Ortlinde in Robert Carsen’s production of Die Walküre at Teatro Real, Madrid; Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and Erste Dame in Die Zauberflöte at Garsington Opera, the title role in Suor Angelica at Théâtre municipal de Fontainebleau, Agathe in Der Freischütz for Blackheath Opera, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser at Saffron Hall, Sieglinde in Die Walküre in concert in London, covered Ofglen in Poul Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale at ENO, as well roles at Glyndebourne, Scottish Opera, Hong Kong City Hall and Schlosstheater Schönbrunn, Austria. Her performances at Teatro Real, both in Die Walküre and Claus Guth’s production of Parsifal, were filmed for television and DVD release and broadcast to cinemas across Spain.
In recital, her performances have included engagements at the Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall, LSO St. Luke’s, Cadogan Hall and the Barbican. Recent performances include Verdi’s Requiem at Southwark Cathedral, Mendelssohn’s Elijah at Gloucester Cathedral, Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder at Newbury Spring Festival, Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder at the City of London Festival, and Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer at Milton Court.
This season Samantha recorded her debut album, dream.risk.sing: elevating women’s voices, with pianist Lana Bode. dream.risk.sing is an initiative that Samantha and Lana brought to fruition during 2020 and includes Charlotte Bray’s Crossing Faultlines, a song cycle exploring women’s experiences in the workplace which was commissioned especially for the project, and received its world première at Oxford Lieder Festival in October 2021. In 2022, Samantha and Lana gave subsequent performances at The Barber Institute for Arts and The Bloomsbury Festival, London. dream.risk.sing the album will release on Delphian Records in early 2023 featuring the first ever recordings of Crossing Faultlines, Libby Larsen’s songs from her The Birth Project and new arrangements of two songs from Judith Weir’s woman.life.song. It is supported by Arts Council England and the RVW Trust.
“Samantha Crawford’s Agathe displayed impressive Wagnerian credentials. On this showing her sweetly voluminous soprano should be soon graduating to Elsa.”
OPERA
“A flawless ensemble…Samantha Crawford’s Mrs Coyle, crystalline of tone and diction.”
THE ARTS DESK
Samantha studied with Yvonne Kenny AM as a Baroness de Turckheim Scholar at the Guildhall School of Music and graduated from the Opera Course with Distinction. She is an alumna of the Wagner Bayreuth Stipendium, Britten-Pears, and Garsington Alvarez Young Artist Programmes.
She was awarded the Golden Medal with Honours at the 2017 Berliner International Music Competition; the 2017/18 NSW Wagner Society Award for Emerging Wagner Singers; and, in 2016, won First Prize and the President’s Prize at the Wagner Society Singing Competition in London.
Media
Watch Samantha perform ‘The ride of the Valkyries’ from Act 3 of Wagner’s Die Walküre at Teatro Real, Madrid.