Soprano Rowan Pierce, who grew up in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, was awarded the President’s Award at the Royal College of Music, presented by HRH The Prince of Wales (now King Charles III). Her competition prizes include First Prize and the Song Prize at the inaugural Grange Festival International Singing Competition, the first Schubert Society Singer Prize, and the Van Someren Godfery Prize at the RCM.
She has been a Britten Pears Young Artist, a Samling Artist, a Rising Star of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and a Harewood Artist at English National Opera.
Rowan made her BBC Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and has since returned for Handel’s Jephtha and Mendelssohn’s Elijah, both with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. She made her Wigmore Hall debut with the London Handel Players and has since appeared there regularly with a wide range of chamber ensembles, spanning both early and more recent repertoire.
Her concert work takes her to platforms worldwide. She appears regularly with ensembles including the Academy of Ancient Music, Dunedin Consort, Early Opera Company, Les Arts Florissants, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Gabrieli Consort, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Royal Northern Sinfonia. Further collaborations have included the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Freiburg Baroque, Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
In North America, she has appeared with the OAE at Lincoln Center in New York, with the Academy of Ancient Music in San Francisco and at Disney Hall in Los Angeles, and gave a recital at the Kennedy Center in Washington with Richard Egarr and William Carter. She has also toured with Philharmonia Baroque, performing music by Purcell at the Caramoor Festival and at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park.
