Elizabeth Stafford

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Elizabeth Stafford was born and educated in Birmingham. She studied for a BA(hons) in Music at Durham University, graduating in 1999, and in 2002 completed a PhD in Performance Studies at Sheffield University specialising in the vocal music of Henry Purcell. In the same year Elizabeth was a finalist in the Musica Britannica Sir Anthony Lewis Competition for Singers, and was awarded a First Prize and ‘Most Promising Young Female Singer’ in the David Clover Competition for Singers. Elizabeth then went on to study Vocal Performance with Wendy Eathorne at Trinity College of Music, where she was chosen to represent the college at a Masterclass with Emma Kirkby at the Handel House Museum, and from whence she graduated with a PGDip in 2004. Elizabeth has studied singing with Janet Edmunds since 1997.

Elizabeth has appeared with numerous ensembles including the Midland Sinfonia, The Quinborne Choir, the Boston Sinfonia, North Yorkshire Chorus, Midland Hospitals Choir, Worrall MVC (Welsh Choir of the Year 2003), and Ex Cathedra, and has broadcast as a soloist on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. From 2000-2003 Elizabeth was First Soprano Lay Clerk at the Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Chad, Birmingham.

Concert work has included: Haydn’s Creation, Nelson Mass, Great and Little Organ Mass and St. Nicholas Mass; Handel’s Messiah, Dixit Dominus and Gloria; Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate, Coronation Mass, Requiem, Vespers and Missa Brevis in D; Faure’s Requiem; Vivaldi’s Gloria and Nulla in mundo pax sincera; Purcell’s Come ye Sons of Art and Hail! Bright Cecilia; Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater; Saint-Saen’s Christmas Oratorio; Berkley’s Missa Brevis; Panufnik’s Song to the Virgin Mary; Mahler’s Fourth Symphony; Beethoven’s Choral Symphony and Charpentier’s Midnight Mass.

Operatic roles include: Susanna and Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro; Dido, the Sorceress, Belinda, the Spirit and the Witches in Dido and Aeneas; Venus in Venus and Adonis; Galatea in Acis and Galatea; Mrs. Sem in Noye’s Fludde; a Young Tree in Paul Bunyan and Pamina in The Magic Flute. Music Theatre roles include: Maria in West Side Story and Sarah in Guys and Dolls. In June 2003 she created the role of the Bride in the World Premiere of Samantha Caroline Graper’s opera The Song of Songs.

Elizabeth has given recitals in venues including the National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Sheffield and Birmingham Cathedrals and the CBSO Centre, and she is a regular performer in Birmingham’s annual ArtsFest. In June 1999 she gave the British Premiere of Anthony Mosakowski’s Five Ophelia Songs and in May 2000 she gave the World Premiere of Sam Thompson’s Five Songs about Love. Elizabeth performs regularly in recital with the organist Mark Batten, the pianist Jonathan Gooing, the lutenist James Akers and The Bacchus String Quartet.