The English soprano Lorna Windsor has always explored many vocal fields, from contemporary to classical recitals and recordings, and also solo performance with top artists, actors, sculpture, visual arts, and light design, creating an original and exciting dimension to vocal performance. Among her forthcoming engagements are Walton’s Façade, and she will be the reciter in Lecture on Nothing from John Cage’s famous Silences.
She began singing as a solist on the BBC Radio children’s programmes, then following her piano and viola studies, studied voice at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, was followed by specialization in Vienna and Paris, studying with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Hans Hotter and Gérard Souzay.
Her brilliant stage temperament led her first to operetta. She made her début as Rosalinde (in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus) and Valencienne (Die lustige Witwe) singing at Sadlers Wells, Tours, Marseilles, Paris. She performed roles in Orphée aux enfers, and La Perichole by Offenbach, directed by Jérôme Savary, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, and at Radio France. She also interpreted various roles in 18th century neapolitan opere buffe at the Teatro Massimo di Palermo, directed by Graziella Sciutti. Her early music career includes 14th century Troubadour songs in their original Occitan language and the operas and works of Monteverdi in Mantua, Vienna, Prague, Budapest Italy and Germany, directed by C. Gallico.
Among her Mozart roles are those of Venus (Ascanio in Alba), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) at Glyndebourne, Despina (Così fan tutte) directed by Claudio Abbado, and also in the Giorgio Strehler production for the Piccolo Teatro di Milano, in Roma, Beijing, Saint Petersburg and Moscow. She has sung opera by Salieri with Frans Bruggen, Bach cantatas with Gustav Leonhardt and among her recordings, Les Motets de Versailles by Blanchard.
Her opera roles also include Euridice (Euridice) (Peri) at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, Oscar (Verdi’s Il ballo in maschera) Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier) in Paris, Norina (Don Pasquale) at Verona, West Side Story and Trouble in Tahiti by Bernstein in Paris, and Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges with producer Daniele Abbado in Ancona and Bari, and has worked with directors Graham Vick and Deborah Warner.
Esteemed as a refined and passionate interpreter of Lieder and song, Lorna Windsor frequently appears in romantic and contemporary chamber music, in works by Berio (Sequenza, Folksongs), Cage, Feldman, Castiglioni, Hindemith, Crumb, Schoenberg (Pierrot Lunaire at the ROH Covent Garden, Streichquartett II), Bussotti (La Passion selon Sade), Walton (Façade), Satie (Socrate), Denissov, Ives, Boulez, Messiaen, Kurtág (Kafka Fragments), Togni, Dallapiccola, Feldmann, Corghi, Adams, in leading international festivals. She has premiered many works by today’s composers who have dedicated their works to her.
She collaborates with numerous soloists, prestigious international ensembles and individual artists, such as Duccio and Vittorio Ceccanti, Bruno Canino, Quartetto di Cremona, Alfonso Alberti, Mario Brunello, Trio Magritte, Trio Brahms, Trio des Alpes, Freon Ensemble, Raffaele Cortesi, Elena Casoli, Maria Grazia Bellocchio, Gian Francesco Amoroso, and writer, Davide Tortorella. For over twenty years she has worked in duo with the pianist Antonio Ballista, both in traditional repertoire, and in shows where music and theater cross paths.
Lorna collaborates with numerous institutions, including the International Centre for American Music (ICAMUS), and is involved in projects of research and promotion.
Lorna Windsor holds masterclasses and teaches at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, and in other Italian conservatoires. She also teaches privately, and works as a language coach for opera houses/recordings.