Ellen Mawhinney

Ellen Mawhinney studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and has now graduated from the Royal Academy of Music Opera School after studying with Kate Paterson and Ingrid Surgenor. Ellen is the winner of Northern Ireland Opera’s Young Opera Voice of the Year award, the Deborah Voigt Prize at Northern Ireland Opera’s Festival of Voice, and the inaugural Charles Wood Song Competition. She has been a featured artist live on BBC Radio 3: In Tune and spotlight recitalist for Classical Connections with BBCNI. She is a Leeds Lieder Young Artist, a Josephine Baker Trust artist and a member of the Academy Song Circle. Recently, she was also a fellow young artist at the Toronto International Song Festival with her duo partner and as a Young Artist for the Celebration of Voice at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. She is the grateful recipient of the John Talbot Collender Award.

With the Royal Academy of Music, she performed the role of Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Ginevra in Handel’s Ariodante, Miss Wordsworth in Britten’s Albert Herring and the role of Josephine in Martinu’s Comedy on the Bridge.

Other operatic performances include the role of Mary Morstan in the premiere of 'Sherlock Holmes' with Northern Opera at the Leeds Opera Festival, Falsirena in La fiera di Venezia with Bampton Opera, Annina in La traviata with Northern Ireland Opera and Tweedle Dee in Will Todd's Alice in Wonderland for the Ireland tour with Opera Collective Ireland.