Praised for her “stylish” singing (Opera Magazine) and the “emotional force” (The Times) of her performances, mezzo-soprano Joanna Harries enjoys a varied career in both opera and recital.

A recent graduate of the National Opera Studio, in the 2022/23 season Joanna makes her debut with Opera Rara and the London Philharmonic Orchestra as Finocchini in Offenbach’s La Princesse de Trébizonde, Contessa Ceprano Rigoletto for Opera Holland Park, Lucinda La forza dell’amor paterno for The Barber Opera, Deborah Robinson Crusoe for West Green House Opera and Medoro Orlando at Buxton International Festival with the Liberata Collective & Ensemble Hesperi led by Adrian Butterfield. She is mezzo soloist for the Mozart Requiem with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Cadogan Hall and for Paul Rissmann’s Through the Looking Glass suite with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Concert Hall. She also brings SongPath’s curated outdoor events back to Oxford Lieder and Leeds Lieder with co-founder Jess Dandy.

In the 2021/22 season Joanna was a Young Artist at the National Opera Studio in London, performing scenes as Cherubino, Idamante, Ruggiero, Le Prince Charmant and Cenerentola with the orchestras of English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North and Scottish Opera. Concerts included a tour of Scandinavian Song with Sholto Kynoch for Oxford Lieder, a Britten Pears Young Artist recital with Sarah Connolly & Joseph Middleton, and series of recitals for Opera Prelude. She was awarded a Sybil Tutton Opera Award, Tait Memorial Trust Award, and was finalist in the inaugural Boosey & Hawkes SingFinzi competition.

Born in New Zealand and raised in Wales, Joanna was a choral scholar at the Cambridge University before training at the Royal Northern College of Music and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Her opera roles stretch from baroque to contemporary, including Dido Dido and Aenea (Purcell), Cherubino Le Nozze di Figaro, Zerlina Don Giovanni and Bastienne Bastien und Bastienne (Mozart), Hélène Une éducation manquée (Chabrier), Varvara Kat’a Kabanova and Karolka Jenůfa (Janáček), the Drummer Der Kaiser von Atlantis (Ullmann), and Sāvitri Sāvitri (Holst).

As concert soloist she has performed at Snape Maltings Concert Hall, with the BBC Philharmonic at Harrogate Royal Hall, and at the Bach Festival Świdnica in Poland. A keen recitalist, Joanna has performed with Oxford Lieder, the Britten Studio at Snape Maltings, Pushkin House and the National Portrait Gallery. She is an Opera Prelude Young Artist, Handel House Talent artist and Britten-Pears Young Artist, and was awarded the Edith Brass Prize for Lieder at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Joanna is in demand as a performer of contemporary music and has premiered roles in new operas including Prometheus in Tim Benjamin’s The Fire of Olympus, Tartine in David Blake & Keith Warner’s Scoring a Century for British Youth Opera, Awen (cover) in Pwyll ap Sion’s Gair ar Gnawd for Welsh National Opera, and Girl/Psychiatrist in Scott Stroman & Tamsin Collison’s Fever Pitch, an adaptation of the iconic Nick Hornby book, and Diana in Scott Stroman’s new opera The Weekend based on Michael Palin’s play.

Joanna runs SongPath with co-founder Jess Dandy, a mental health initiative bringing together music, nature and mental health in specially curated outdoor events, alongside free workshops for local branches of mental health charity Mind. Since 2019 they have taken SongPath to Cumbria (Ulverston International Music Festival), Yorkshire (Leeds Lieder) and Oxfordshire (Oxford Lieder). In 2021 Joanna was awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Enterprise Award to develop a new podcast Songs of the River.

www.joannaharries.com

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