Equally at home on the concert and opera stages, Carolyn Sampson has enjoyed notable successes in the UK as well as throughout Europe and the rest of the world.

The 23/24 season marked an incredible achievement for Carolyn as she celebrated her recording legacy with the release of her 100th album as a featured solo artist. Over the last twenty-five years of her career, she has sung with countless world-class musicians and these recordings serve as testament to both her versatility as an artist and the scope of her repertoire. In 2024 she was awarded an OBE in the King’s New Year Honours, was elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music and was the winner of the Gramophone Artist of the Year Award.

On the opera stage she has appeared with English National Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Berlin Staatsoper, Scottish Opera and Opéra de Paris, amongst others, and she regularly performs at the BBC Proms and with orchestras including the Bach Collegium Japan, Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony Orchestra and with numerous orchestras in the UK & USA. A recent highlight was her debut at Berlin Staatsoper singing Créuse in a new Peter Sellers production of Charpentier’s Medée conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

A consummate recitalist, Carolyn Sampson appears regularly at the Wigmore Hall and has given recitals at the Oxford International Song Festival, Leeds Lieder, Saintes and Aldeburgh Festivals as well as at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Barcelona, Freiburg, Oper Frankfurt, Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin, Vienna Konzerthaus, Carnegie Hall and on tour in Japan.

Carolyn has an extensive discography appearing on the Harmonia Mundi, BIS, Hyperion, Virgin Classics, DG Archiv, Linn Records, BIS and Vivat labels. Her recording with Ex Cathedra, 'A French Baroque Diva' won the recital award in the 2015 Gramophone Awards, and her disc of Bach Cantatas with Freiburger Barockorchester was awarded a Diapason D’or. The past seasons have seen the release of many acclaimed recordings, notably Carolyn’s first solo orchestra CD, Canteloube 'Chants d'Auvergne' with Tapiola Sinfonietta and Pascal Rophé and the acclaimed album 'Trennung: Songs of Separation' with Kristian Bezuidenhout, both under the BIS label.

This season includes Berlioz Hermine with Kammerakademie Potsdam, Stravinsky Pulcinella with Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana under Charles Dutoit, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony under Osmo Vänskä and Bach St Matthew Passion under Laurence Cummings both with Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Bach Christmas Oratorio with Netherlands Kammerkoor, and a programme of Mozart and Telemann with Handel & Haydn Society of Boston.

Photo credit: Matthew Johnson