British soprano Caroline Taylor graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music with Distinction, where she won the Joyce and Michael Kennedy Award for Singing of Strauss. A keen performer of Czech repertoire, she won the 2021 Emmy Destinn Award for Czech Opera and Song and the 2023 Off West End Opera Performance Award with Hampstead Garden Opera for Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, in which she played the title role. She is a City Music Foundation Artist, a 2025 Song Easel Young Artist and a Making Music UK Recommended Artist for 2024-2026. She was a finalist and special prize winner in the 2025 International Haydn Competition for Classical Lied and Aria and winner of the Armitage Audience Prize at the Northern Aldborough Festival’s New Voices Competition (June 2025).
Praised for her “glittering soprano” (The Times), Caroline’s most recent and future engagements include Suor Genoveffa Suor Angelica (Dorset Opera Festival), Countess The Marriage of Figaro (Cumbria Opera Festival), Fauré’s Requiem and Poulenc’s Gloria at the Caird Hall, Dundee, Mozart’s Requiem at the Oxford International Song Festival (formerly Oxford Lieder), Vaughan Williams' Dona nobis pacem at Bath Abbey under Gavin Carr and Beethoven Symphony No. 9 under Stephen Threlfall. A keen recitalist, she performs a song gala with Nicky Spence OBE and Roger Vignoles at the Two Moors Festival and Mussorgsky's Detskaya (The Nursery) with Derek Clark and completes a UK and European recital tour with her duo partner Sebastian Issler.
Recent concerts include her recital debut at the Royal Ballet and Opera (formerly the Royal Opera House), accompanied by Fran Hills. Further season highlights included Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri (Peri) at the Caird Hall and a solo recital with Roger Vignoles at Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, in a programme comprising Strauss’ Brentano Lieder.
Further opera credits include La Musica L’Orfeo (Longborough Festival Opera), Lauretta Gianni Schicchi (RNCM Opera), Helena The Enchanted Island (British Youth Opera), She Cupboard Love, Governess The Turn of the Screw and Miss Wordsworth Albert Herring (Byre Opera), Kate The Yeomen of the Guard (Grange Festival), Sara in the World Premiere of Ben Kaye and Adam Gorb’s The Path to Heaven (RNCM, Psappha) and a number of leading Gilbert & Sullivan roles. Caroline has enjoyed particular success in the roles of Vixen Sharp-Ears (HGOpera, Longborough - cover, Barnes Music Festival), Asteria Tamerlano (Cambridge Handel Opera; Grange Festival) and Adina The Elixir of Love (Duchy Opera; King’s Head Theatre), with Opera Magazine hailing her “astonishing veracity and persuasiveness”.
Concert highlights include Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with the Northern Chamber Orchestra, Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Northern Ballet Sinfonia, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at the Bridgewater Hall, broadcast on BBC Radio 3; and solo performances at Wigmore Hall, St James’s Piccadilly, St Martin in the Fields, Sinfonia Smith Square and the Holywell Music Room. Caroline is a former Concordia Foundation Artist, member of the Wigmore Hall French Song Exchange and Oxford International Song Festival Young Artist with duo partner George Ireland.
Prior to her musical studies, Caroline completed an MA (Hons) in French, Italian and Spanish at the University of St Andrews, comprising an Erasmus year abroad at Université Paris-IV Sorbonne. She graduated as the recipient of the Cedric Thorpe Davie Memorial Prize for outstanding contribution to music and theatre.
...while an actress silently mimed Asteria on stage, Caroline Taylor sang her role at the edge of the stage in her evening dress, and she, who had rehearsed the role in English, sang the Italian text line for line of sheet. Not only did she save this evening - a cancellation of the performance would have been inevitable: she was simply fantastic. Her crystal-clear, highly melodic soprano filled the shabby chic auditorium...the starting signal for one brilliant career as a singer. The well-known aria 'Se potessi un dì placare', interpreted in a highly musical way, became the undisputed highlight of the evening [...] The great Caroline Taylor was of a different caliber: during the final applause, she unmistakably earned the strongest cheers.
Taylor, who sang the role in Cambridge earlier this year, creates as vigorous and determined account as then, whilst holding back tenderness for when she is finally reconciled with Andronico, her true lover
Caroline Taylor plays the Vixen with astonishing veracity and persuasiveness, capturing her sweetness, sensuality and swagger. Her soprano shines as brightly as the Vixen’s joyful smile
For me, the performance was held together by the radiant and imaginative Vixen of Caroline Taylor. Physically she embodied the animal beautifully [...] Taylor held our attention throughout in a wonderfully engaging way, and musically she was lyrically satisfying too, rising with ease over the reduced orchestra
Caroline Taylor as Sharp-Ears is sensational, playing her role as a proto feminist she delivers the complete performance, using mime, dance and her wonderfully rich voice
Caroline Taylor (La Musica) sparkles in her opening prologue…
Caroline Taylor is confident and rich-toned as Music
La Musica’s utterances (a splendid Caroline Taylor) make her something of a compère…
l’excellente Musica du soprano joliment coloré de Caroline Taylor