Suzanne McGrath

Winner of the Tovey Memorial Prize, Michael Shea Bursary and Florence Veitch Ibler Prize, Suzanne is a graduate of The University of Edinburgh with an honours degree in Music. During her degree she was a recipient of the Doris Hunter Academic Bursary. She is fluent in Italian following a year’s study on the Erasmus exchange programme at the Università degli Studi di Milano. Whilst in Milan she studied singing privately at the Conservatorio di Giuseppe Verdi with Margaret Hayward. Prior to commencing her course in musicologia, Suzanne studied Italian intensively for three months in Florence, Sicily and Siena.

Suzanne has performed throughout Scotland; in November 2010, she toured as a soloist to sing Gabriel Jackson's The Spacious Firmament conducted by Michael Bawtree for the John Armitage Trust with the joint university chamber choirs of Aberdeen, St. Andrew’s and Edinburgh and Onyx Brass. This was followed by Carmina Burana (Orff) for Orkney's prestigious St. Magnus Festival with Glenys Hughes. In opera, roles include the Fox (The Cunning Little Vixen) for Edinburgh Studio Opera (ESO) and Serpetta (La Finta Giardiniera) for Hand Made Opera. In ESO opera scenes the Countess (Le Nozze di Figaro), Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier), Poppea (L'Incoronazione di Poppea) and Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes). Suzanne has performed as part of the ensemble for new opera The Okavango Macbeth by Tom Cunningham and Alexander McCall-Smith, directed by Nicholas Ellenbogen and conducted by Nicholas Fletcher.

In September 2010 Suzanne travelled to Slovenia with the Choir of London for the Maribor Festival, conducted by Jeremy Summerly and artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Richard Tognetti. Solo performances with orchestra include B Minor Mass (Bach) as a young artist for the Dunedin Consort directed by John Butt, 2nd Symphony (Mahler), Magnificat (Bach), Gloria (Vivaldi), Requiem (Fauré) and In the World of the Spirit (Britten). For the past two summers Suzanne has taken part in the Abingdon Summer School for Solo Singers where she took part in masterclasses with Susan Bullock, Susan McCulloch, Robin Bowman, Elaine Kidd and Henry Herford. During the time spent working on the role of Serpetta for Hand Made Opera she received coaching from Nicholas Cleobury, Matthew Halls and Nicoletta Conti in Umbria, Italy on a variety of repertoire.

Early in 2011, Suzanne sang Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) for Schola Cantorum of Edinburgh at the Royal Overseas League for the German Circle, the soprano solo in the Nelson Mass (Haydn) for the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union and taken part in a performance of the Rachmaninoff Vespers for chamber choir Quodlibet singing the soprano solo for MacMillan’s Christus Vincit.

In April 2011 Suzanne relocated to Perth, where she was invited to sing as a Young Artist at West Australian Opera. Sadly she was unable to accept the place due to visa problems; however, she continues to take advice from artistic director Richard Mills. She has now returned to Europe, and is preparing to study German and pursue further vocal study on the continent. Whilst in the UK, she continues singing with Patricia MacMahon.

Suzanne is an accomplished dancer; aged 17 she was accepted to study at Europe’s top contemporary dance conservatoire, The LABAN Centre, on their performance degree programme, but chose to accept an offer to the University of Edinburgh instead. As well as singing Suzanne plays the piano to a high standard, twice winning Senior Musician of the Year at the Beswick Music Festival in 2004 and 2005.

Please see the Performances page of this site for more details of Suzanne's past and forthcoming performances.