Canadian soprano Gillian Keith, winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award in 2000, studied at McGill University in Montréal and at the Royal Academy of Music in London.  She appears frequently with many leading orchestras including the Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and English Baroque Soloists.  Recent appearances include Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Northern Sinfonia, Handel’s Deborah with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Bach’s St Matthew Passion with King’s Consort, Mozart’s Mass in C minor with The Sixteen, Bach solo cantatas with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas McGegan, Messiah with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Stephen Layton, Bach Magnificat with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra/Robert King, John Tavener’s Schuon Lieder with the Schubert Ensemble, Silete Venti and Hercules at the Handel in Oxford Festival and she performed a recently discovered aria by Bach in the 2005 London Bach Festival. Her recordings include Debussy: Early Songs for Deux-Elles, Purcell The Tempest for Naxos, Handel Gloria with John Eliot Gardiner for Philips and Bach Cantatas for Gardiner on his recently-launched label Soli Deo Gloria.

Operatic roles include Nannetta Falstaff (English National Opera), Dew Fairy Hansel and Gretel (BBC Proms), Iole Hercules and Silvia in Mozart’s Ascanio in Alba (Buxton Festival), Poppea (Theater Basel), Woodbird Siegfried, Papagena Magic Flute and Amor Orfeo ed Euridice (all for Scottish Opera).  She has sung Soprano Solo in Deborah Warner’s staging of Bach’s St John Passion for ENO, Bellezza in Handel’s Triumph of Time and Truth for Almeida Opera and Diana La Calisto for Toronto Consort.

This season’s and future commitments include Zerbinetta Ariadne auf Naxos at Covent Garden, Ginevre Ariodante in Halle, Handel’s Messiah in Calgary, Madrid and with the Northern Sinfonia, Mahler 8 with the RPO, Bach Wedding Cantatas with Tafelmusik, Mozart with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Tytania in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Richard Hickox at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre Covent Garden, Diana The Assassin Tree for ROH2 and at the Edinburgh Festival, Purcell’s King Arthur at English National Opera and in San Francisco, Elmira Croesus with Opera North, Tiny Paul Bunyon at the Bregenz Festival and Florentiner Intermedien in Saarbrücken.