English National Opera (ENO) has announced details of the five singers who will be the ENO Harewood Artists for the 2022-23 season.

This industry-leading programme for talented British-trained or British-based singers is open to promising artists at the start of their professional careers. The Harewood Artists scheme enables talented singers to perform with the ENO while receiving specialist coaching, support and guidance for two to three years. It is funded through donations.

The programme offers the Hareward Artists mainstage experience and the opportunity to perform career-building roles with a major opera company. They will also be provided with a bespoke coaching programme based on their own needs and aspirations.

The five new singers joining the programme this year are soprano Isabelle Peters, mezzo-soprano Amy Holyland, tenors Innocent Masuku and Zwakele Tshabalala and bass-baritone Ossian Huskinson.

Peters graduated from Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Northern College of Music. She was previously a Welsh National Opera Associate Artist and an English National Opera Chorister Fellow.

She has previously performed at Waterperry Opera, Garsington Opera and Opera Holland Park. She will make her Royal Opera House debut as Sigismondo in Handel’s Arminio (1737), based on the life of Germanic chieftain Arminius, who defeated the Romans.

For ENO, she can currently be seen as Kate in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Yeoman of the Guard (1888). Next year she will be singing the part of Daughter 2 in a revival of Phelim McDermott’s Olivier Award-winning production of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten (1983).

Originally from Cumbria, Holyland is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Music. Next year she is set to cover Wellgunde in ENO’s production of Wagner’s The Rhinegold (1869) and Brigitta in ENO’s new version of Korngold’s The Dead City (1920).

She received a DipRAM for an outstanding final Master’s recital at the Royal Academy of Music. Holyland was highly commended in the Isabel Jay Memorial Prize in 2019 and very highly commended in the Royal Academy’s Bicentenary Award in 2020.

Career highlights include performing in this year’s Glyndebourne Festival; she was a joint recipient of Glyndebourne’s 2022 John Christie Award, an annual scholarship to recognise exceptionally talented singers.

South African tenor Masuku studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He is the recipient of many awards, including a Merit award in the 2019 SAMRO competition, a Drake Calleja Trust scholarship and The Countess Of Munster Musica award.

He made his first public performance as Crabman in a Cape Town Opera production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935), set in Argentina. This summer he was a member of the Glyndebourne Chorus.

He is currently performing for the ENO as Leonard Meryll in The Yeomen of the Guard. Next year, he will appear in Bizet’s Carmen (1875) as well as The Dead City.

Also hailing from South Africa, in 2016 Tshabalala was the winner of The Schock Foundation Prize for Singing at the University of Cape Town. In 2019 he won a full scholarship to study at The Royal College of Music in London.

Career highlights so far include the title role in Dutch National Opera’s world premiere performances of Neo Muyanga’s Anansi (2021), Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess for Theater an der Wien and performing in Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 with the Chineke! Orchestra under Kevin John Edusei for this year’s BBC Proms.

For ENO, he is set to perform in Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s It’s a Wonderful Life (2016) and the UK premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Blue (2019).

The final new addition to the Harewood Artists scheme, British-born Huskinson is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music. He won first prize – as well as the audience prize – in the Clonter Opera Competition 2021, and was one of the final round participants for the Neue-Stimmen competition 2022.

He was a Young Artist in Garsington Opera’s 2021 Summer Festival; he was awarded the Simon Sandbach award in recognition of his contribution to the festival’s productions. He went on to perform at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2021, performing as the Lackey in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (1912).

He is currently performing as Sciarrone in ENO’s new production of Puccini’s Tosca (1900) and later this year will appear in Christmas opera It’s a Wonderful Life.

These five new Harewood Artists join the previously announced sopranos Alexandra Oomens and Idunnu Münch, tenor John Findon and bass-baritone Benson Wilson. You can find out more about all nine artists from English National Opera.

 

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ENO’s five new Harewood Artists: (top row) Isabelle Peters, Amy Holyland, (centre) Zwakele Tshabalala, (bottom row) Ossian Huskinson and Innocent Masuku.