Helen Charlston
Hailed “a rather special mezzo” (Music Web International), Helen Charlston began singing as chorister and head chorister of the St Albans Abbey Girls Choir. She then studied music at Trinity College, Cambridge where she held a choral scholarship for four years.
A young artist increasingly in demand in the UK and abroad, Helen won First Prize in the 2018 London Handel Singing Competition, and is a Rising Star of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment for 2017-19. Recent concert highlights include Telemann Ihr Völker hört with Florilegium at Wigmore Hall, Schoenberg’s Lied der Waldtaube at Cadogan Hall, Handel Jephtha at the London Festival of Baroque Music and Mendelssohn Lobgesang with Royal Northern Sinfonia at Sage Gateshead. Helen has often been heard on BBC Radio 3 in live radio concert relays, as a guest on In Tune and features on Hyperion’s newly released recording of Bach B Minor Mass (the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Trinity College Choir for Hyperion).
Further afield, solo roles include Bach Matthew Passion at Grand Théâtre de Provence as part of the Aix-en-Provence Festival de Pâques (Gabrieli Consort and Players/Paul McCreesh); a worldwide tour of Handel Messiah with the Seattle Symphony, the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra and Adelaide Symphony Orchestra; Bach Magnificat in D (Auckland Symphony Orchestra/Stephen Layton); Mozart Requiem at the Three Choirs Festival (Philharmonia Orchestra/Simon Halsey); Duruflé Requiem in Frankfurt Cathedral; Handel Dixit Dominus at the Eliat Chamber Music Festival, Israel (Gabrieli Consort and Players/Paul McCreesh) and Elgar Sea Pictures with Cambridge University Sinfonia.
On the stage, recent roles include Messaggera and Proserpina (Monteverdi L’Orfeo) for Brighton Early Music Festival and First Witch (Dido and Aeneas) for La Nuova Music at Wigmore Hall. This Summer Helen appears at London’s Tête à tête Opera Festival, singing Anne in the premiere of Tom Smail Blue Electric. In 2015, she created the role of Dido in the premiere of a new chamber opera based on Virgil’s writings about Dido: Dido is Dead, by young composer Rhiannon Randle.