Saltburn-by-the-Sea soprano Rowan Pierce was awarded the President’s Award by HRH Prince of Wales at the Royal College of Music in 2017. She won both the Song Prize and First Prize at the inaugural Grange Festival International Singing Competition, the Van Someren-Godfrey Prize at the Royal College of Music and the first Schubert Society Singer Prize in 2014.

Pierce has appeared on the concert platform throughout Europe and in South America, performing with ensembles such as the Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Gabrieli, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Early Opera Company, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Florilegium and Royal Northern Sinfonia. She made her BBC Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and her Wigmore Hall debut with the London Handel Players in 2017.

As a Britten-Pears Young Artist she performed Drusilla in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea. Other roles include Galatea in Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Dorinda in Handel’s Orlando, Iris in Handel’s Semele, Susanna and Barbarina in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Miss Wordsworth in Britten’s Albert Herring and Princess in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. She has also performed Elsie in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard and various roles in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, The Fairy Queen and King Arthur.

Pierce is a Rising Star of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, a Harewood Artist at English National Opera and a frequent collaborator with the Academy of Ancient Music. She made her debut for English National Opera as Tiny in Britten’s Paul Bunyan.