Creative Spaces Opera Masterclass  ~  Jemma Brown

Jemma Brown (mezzo soprano) was a music scholar at St Leonards School, St Andrews, before obtaining a BMus (hons) from the University of Glasgow in 2007, studying with Patricia MacMahon. While at the University she held a Lanfine choral scholarship and the Currie studentship for organ, and in her final year she was awarded the Hague prize for performance and the Cramb travel bursary.

She graduated in 2008 with a PgDip from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and in 2009 with a Master of Music in performance. Jemma is currently continuing her studies with Kathleen McKellar Ferguson on the MMus (opera) course at the Alexander Gibson Opera School, RSAMD, with assistance from the RSAMD scholarship trust and generous support from the Donald Dewar Arts Awards.

Jemma has sung in masterclasses for Karen Cargill, Rosalind Sutherland, Ann Murray, Malcolm Martineau, Lorna Anderson and Joan Rodgers. Recent oratorio performances have included the Durufle requiem with Glasgow University Chapel Choir, Haydn Creation and St Bernarda Mass with Glasgow University Choral Society, Handel Messiah in Dornoch Cathedral and in the Usher Hall, Purcell Ode to St Cecilia’s day at the Festival Fringe, Buxtehude Membra Jesu Nostri with the Clyde consort and Mendelssohn Elijah in Greyfriars Kirk with the Edinburgh Singers.

Jemma sang the world premiere of Kirsty Blackwood’s These Delicious Promptings, which was commissioned as a collaboration with visual artist Anna Henson, at the 2008 Glasgow International Visual Arts Festival. Jemma continued her collaboration with Anna to produce work for Anna’s Master in Fine Arts at the Glasgow School of Art, featuring in the art installation at her interim degree show and recorded the soundtrack for some of Anna's other film projects. Jemma also participated in the RSAMD's Max at 75 festival to high critical acclaim singing Dark Angels, a cycle for mezzo and guitar.

Recent roles in opera scenes include: Ottavia (Monteverdi L'incorazione di Poppea), Agrippina (Handel Agrippina), Jezibaba (Dvorak Rusalka), Leonora (Donizetti La Favorita), Genevieve (Debussy Pelleas et Melisande) and Zia Principessa (Puccini Suor Angelica). Jemma covered the role of Madame de Croissy in the RSAMD production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites in June 2008 and has appeared at the opening concert of the Edinburgh International Festival in Kurt Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny as one of the Ladies of Mahagonny in August 2008. She joined the company of British Youth Opera for their 2009 Summer season as a chorus member in Stravinsky The Rake's Progress. Roles this year include Mavra Kuzminichna in Prokofiev's War and Peace, and Marga the Mesmerist in the world premiere of Rory Boyle's Kaspar Hauser.

She is an active recitalist with pianist Maryam Sherhan, and they are members of Live Music Now!, a scheme set up by Yehudi Menuhin to help young professional musicians by providing work and to take quality live music into venues lacking in live performance, such as schools, nursing homes and prisons.

Future plans include a recital tour of Aberdeenshire for Live Music Now!, recitals for Live Music Now! at the National Museum of Scotland and at St Mary's Metropolitan Cathedral in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and an appearance at the BBC proms with colleagues from the RSAMD and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.