"Carolyn Sampson presents every song as being delivered by a well-drawn protagonist, and emerges as a master storyteller in one of her most emotionally direct performances on disk."
Gramophone
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 season 2023/24 marked an incredible achievement for her 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.
Recent performance highlights include her debut at Berlin Staatsoper singing Créuse in a new Peter Sellers production of Charpentier’s "Medée" conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, Mahler’s 8th Symphony (soprano 1) with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester under Semyon Bychkov, Bach’s Passions with the Netherlands and Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest and concerts with the Česká Filharmonie, Budapesti Fesztiválzenekar, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and a European Tour with Bach Collegium Japan including a return to the BBC Proms. She presented recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Queen’s Hall Edinburgh, the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam as part of the "Grote Zangers" series, for Leeds Lieder and for International Lied Festival Zeist.
In the 2024/25 season she looks forward to Haydn’s "Die Schöpfung" (The Creation) with both the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris under Masaaki Suzuki at the Paris Philharmonie and with the CBSO under Kazuki Yamada, another European tour with Bach Collegium Japan, solo programmes with La Scintilla at Opernhaus Zurich with Riccardo Minasi, with the Freiburger Barockorchester, and returns to the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Dresdner Philharmonie.
Having begun her career in the early music world she has forged long-standing relationships with many renowned groups among them Bach Collegium Japan, the Academy of Ancient Music, The Sixteen, and Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. Carolyn Sampson also cherishes her relationships with some of the world’s finest symphony orchestras. She has been a regular guest with the Concertgebouworkest, Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, Gürzenich Orchester Köln, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the BBC Scottish and BBC Philharmonic as well as the Boston Symphony, San Francisco Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra to name but a few. Recent additions to her repertoire have included Strauss’ "Vier letzte Lieder" and Dutilleux’s "Correspondances", which pieces she has performed in the UK, The Netherlands and Croatia. She is proud to be part of the Minnesota Orchestra’s Mahler series with whom she recorded both the 4th and 8th Symphony with Osmo Vänskä for the BIS label.
Carolyn Sampson has had the pleasure of working with other inspiring conductors such as Harry Bicket, Ivor Bolton, Riccardo Chailly, Jonathan Cohen, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Trevor Pinnock, Donald Runnicles and Ludovic Morlot. She is a regular at international festivals such as the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and Dresdner Musikfestspiele. On the opera stage her roles have included the title role in Semele and Pamina in "The Magic Flute" for English National Opera, various roles in Purcell’s "The Fairy Queen" for Glyndebourne Festival Opera (released on DVD), and Anne Truelove in "The Rake’s Progress" and Mélisande in "Pelléas et Mélisande" in Sir David McVicar’s productions for Scottish Opera. In the 2021/22 season she sang Cleopatra in Handel’s "Giulio Cesare" at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona. She has also appeared at Opéra de Paris, Opéra de Lille, Opéra de Montpellier and Opéra National du Rhin, and sang the title role in Lully’s "Psyché" for the Boston Early Music Festival, which was released on CD and subsequently nominated for a Grammy in 2008.
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, Konzerthaus Wien, Carnegie Hall and on tour in Japan.
Carolyn Sampson has had a celebrated song partnership with pianist Joseph Middleton for over a decade. Their debut recording ,"Fleurs", was released 2015 on the BIS label and was nominated in the solo vocal category of the Gramophone Awards as is their most recent album "But I Like to Sing". Alongside her longstanding relationship with the BIS label, she has released award-winning discs for Decca, Harmonia Mundi, and Hyperion, receiving accolades including the Choc de l'Année Classica, an ECHO Award, and a Diapason d’or. Gramophone Awards include "A French Baroque Diva" (recital 2015), Mozart’s Mass in C minor and "Exultate, jubilate" (Choral 2017) and Bach St Matthew Passion (Choral 2020).