Helen Charlston

British mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston gained her first musical experience in the girls’ choir of St. Albans Abbey, studied at Trinity College and the University of Cambridge, and graduated from the Pembroke College Lieder Scheme, where she was taught by Roderick Williams, Joan Rodgers, and Sarah Connolly. In 2018, she won the Handel Singing Competition in London. She was a Rising Star of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and is currently a BBC New Generation Artist. Performances have taken her to the London Handel Orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music, and the Gabrieli Consort & Players; she has also appeared in solo recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Oxford Lieder Festival, and the Handel Festival in Halle, among others. Her operatic repertoire ranges from Monteverdi to Britten and Bernstein. During the coronavirus pandemic, she commissioned the Isolation Songbook, featuring songs responding to the lockdown.

July 2021