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. 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 Blake’s The Passion of Mary with the RPO, 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), Schuon Lieder, Knaifel’s O Heavenly King, Górecki’s Good Night on Louth Sounds, and Spanish songs for soprano and guitar with Craig Ogden on Somm Records, She also recorded Pärt's L'abbé Agathon for ECM records and a CD of Strauss songs with pianist Charles Owen. Patricia’s most recent disk is Pärt’s Face to Face and Tavener’s Epistle of Love on Louth Sounds. She recently gave 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, 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 festival and the Wigmore Hall.  Highlights this season and beyond include performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall with Vladimir Jurowski, recitals at Bath International Festival, Wigmore Hall and performances of ‘Faultline’ with the Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company across the UK, Sweden and India.  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. .

Photo credit: Alexandra