Patricia Rozario

Soprano

Born in Bombay, Patricia Rozario studied at London’s Guildhall School of Music, winning the Gold Medal and the Maggie Teyte Prize. Since then her career has developed in opera, concert work, recording and broadcasting. Her unique voice and artistry has inspired several of the world’s leading composers to write for her, most notably Arvo Pärt and Sir John Tavener, who alone has now written over thirty works for her, making their collaboration unique in the contemporary field. She has sung with Solti, Ashkenazy, Jurowski, Belohlavek, Gardiner, Pinnock and Andrew Davis, sung opera at Aix-en-Provence, Amsterdam, Lyon, Lille, Bremen, Antwerp, Wexford, ENO, Glyndebourne and Opera North, and given concerts in North America, Canada, Russia, the Far East, Australia, throughout Europe, and at all the major UK venues. 

Her wide concert and opera repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary music. She has given the premiere performances of many pieces written especially for her including Pärt's Como Anhela la Cierva, Beastly Tales by Roxanna Panufnik, and Tavener’s Life Eternal, Ikon of Eros, Veil of the Temple in London and New York, Lament for Jerusalem in Australia and Schuon Lieder at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. Most recently she has premiered John Casken’s Farness with the Northern Sinfonia and Chansons de Verlaine at the Wigmore Hall, and Jonathan Dove’s settings of Vikram Seth, Minterne, with Steven Isserlis and Phillippe Honoré. Other notable concert appearances include Pärt's L'abbé Agathon with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Mahler’s 4th Symphony with Northern Sinfonia, the US premiere of Tavener’s Solemnitas in Conceptione, Vaughan Williams’ Pastoral Symphony with Andrew Davis, Britten’s Les Illuminations with Daniel Harding, Gorecki's Third Symphony in Athens, and Pärt’s Como Anhela la Cierva with Vladimir Jurowski in Paris, Moscow and Gothenburg. She has so far appeared eight times at the BBC Proms. 

On the opera stage she created the role of Belisa in Simon Holt’s The Nightingale’s to Blame for Opera North and has premiered Errolyn Wallen’s opera Another America: Earth at the Linbury Theatre Royal Opera House. Other operatic appearances include Ilia Idomeneo for Glyndebourne, Zerlina Don Giovanni at Aix-en-Provence, Servilia La clemenza di Tito in Lyon, Pamina The Magic Flute for Kent Opera, and Vivaldi’s Catone in Utica with Jean-Claude Malgoire in France. 

Her extensive discography includes Songs of the Auvergne with Pritchard, Haydn's Stabat Mater under Pinnock, Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia with Hickox, Casken's Golem (a Gramophone award-winner), recordings with Graham Johnson for the Hyperion Schubert Series, and several major works of John Tavener, including Mary of Egypt, the Akhmatova Songs with Steven Isserlis, Eternity’s Sunrise (nominated for the Classical Brit Awards 2000), and Schuon Lieder. She has recently recorded Pärt's L'abbé Agathon for ECM records and a CD of Strauss songs with pianist Charles Owen. 

Recent performances include the UK premiere of songs from Ahmed Essayad’s Voix Interdites with London Sinfonietta, Tavener’s Cantus Mysticus with London Sinfonietta at the BBC Proms, To a Child Dancing in the Wind and Melina at Temenos 08, Errolyn Wallen’s Faultline with Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, the premiere of one-woman opera Don’t Go Down the Elephant written for Patricia by Andrew Gant, and recitals at the City of London, Salisbury and West Cork Chamber Music festivals and at the Wigmore Hall. 

This season, Patricia sings Casken’s Farness with Northern Sinfonia, performs at Vienna’s Ehrbar Saal, and at the Bath and Drogheda Arts festivals. Future plans include recitals at Leicester International Music Festival, the Temple Song Festival, with Louth Contemporary Music Society, and a major USA tour of a new work by Roxana Panufnik with Chanticleer. May 2009 also sees the release of two new recordings: Knaifel’s O Heavenly King and Górecki’s Good Night on Louth Sounds, and Spanish songs for soprano and guitar with Craig Ogden on Somm Records. 

Patricia Rozario was awarded the OBE in the New Year’s Honours, 2001 and the Asian Women’s Award for Achievement in the Arts, 2002. 

Selected Reviews

Drogheda Arts Festival (May 2009)
“Soprano Patricia Rozario (…) gave a hauntingly beautiful performance of one of Knaifel’s best-known pieces, O Heavenly King.” – Irish Times
 

Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, Faultline, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield (November 2008)
“Soprano Patricia Rozario’s incredibly flexible and powerful soprano … “ – Huddersfield Daily Examiner


Howard Blake 70th Birthday Concert, The Passion of Mary, Cadogan Hall (October 2008)
“Patricia Rozario glowed in the part (of Mary), mystical and full of wonder at the events unfolding in her life, keeping control of her voice and never losing sight of the fact that this music is truly beautiful.” – musicweb-international.com


Temenos 08, Co. Louth (October 2008)
“Soprano Patricia Rozario took rather a more proactive role in the 1983 To a Child Dancing in the Wind with the Oriel Trio (flute, harp and viola). (…) the text was unavailable, though this was considerably compensated for in Rozario’s extraordinarily vivid expression.” – Irish Times


Tavener, Cantus Arcticus (UK première), BBC Proms (August 2008)
“Patricia Rozario’s fearless soprano…” – The Guardian


West Cork Chamber Music Festival (July 2008)
“the highlight of the closing concert was Austrian composer Thomas Larcher's My Illness is the Medicine I Need for soprano (Patricia Rozario) and piano trio. The text, of statements from patients in psychiatric hospitals, is taken from an issue of Benetton's magazine, Colors. Larcher set them - and they were here delivered - with heart-rending acuity." – Irish Times


City of London Festival, Drapers Hall, with Julius Drake (July 2008)
“Rozario’s performance was intensely musical, and the higher she went, the more beautiful she sounded (…) Tavener’s music, delivered through Rozario’s subtle, suggestive art, shadowed the poetry’s every movement.” – The Independent

“The music had a quiet sumptuousness, the vocal lines beautifully drawn out, the accompaniment sweetly harmonious” – The Times


Celebrating English Song, Tardebigge (July 2008)
“Soprano Patricia Rozario and pianist Mark Bebbington, the collaboration rewarding, natural and easy, responded to these sensitive miniatures with an intelligence and empathy which informed their performances throughout (…) Pleasantly creamy, Rozario’s phrasing allowed her clarity of diction to point key words” – Birmingham Post