Georgia Mae Ellis & Florent Mourier

We are welcoming back our alums to the Studio for a series of free recitals. This is an opportunity for them to try out new programmes, repertoire, or even styles – and for our audiences to follow their journeys since leaving the Studio.

Featuring mezzo-soprano Georgia Mae Ellis (2023/24) and repetiteur Florent Mourier (2017/18), this recital will include, Les nuits d’été by Berlioz, Leider eines Farhrenden Gesellen by Mahler and a selection of English songs.

Georgia Mae Ellis

Georgia Mae Ellis is a British Mezzo-soprano from East Sussex, who studied for her undergraduate and Master’s degrees at the Royal Northern College of Music under the tutelage of Mary Plazas. She is a recent alum of the National Opera Studio 23/24. Her time at NOS was supported by the Glyndebourne New Generation Young Artists Development Award. Following her time at NOS she secured a principle role at Glyndebourne for their autumn season of 2024 singing the role of Annina in Verdi’s La Traviata.

Other roles include Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Der Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos, Mother Goose in The Rakes Progress (all performed at The Royal Academy of Music). At RNCM she performed roles such as The Fox in The Cunning Little Vixen, Mère Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites and Fanny Price in Mansfield Park by Jonathan Dove. In the summer of 2024 she sang at Waterperry Opera Festival as Mrs Grose in Benjamin Britten’s Turn of The Screw. She also made her Edinburgh Festival debut as one of the specially selected gifted singers for the ‘Exploring Rossini’ project directed by pianist James Bailllieu. She returns to Waterperry this August to sing the role of Donne Elvira in Don Giovanni and then returns to Cumbria Opera Group as Miss Jessel in Turn of The Screw.

Florent Mourier

French pianist Florent Mourier is based in London. He is specialised in vocal repertoire (art song and opera) and is much in demand as a recitalist and a vocal coach.

Florent is on staff at the Jette Parker Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the National Opera Studio and the Guildhall School of Music. He is also a visiting coach at the Mascarade Opera Foundation in Florence.

Florent has recently released an EP of Debussy’s Quatre chansons de jeunesse with Canadian soprano Sarah Dufresne and is looking forward to making his Canadian debut with her in Montreal in September 2025.

Florent has played at the Wigmore Hall, the Barbican Hall, Milton Court, St John’s Smith Square in London, the Holywell Music Room at the Oxford Lieder Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Fondation Royaumont in France, Brussel’s La Monnaie, Utrecht’s Tivoli Vredenburg and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in the Netherlands.

For Opera Rara’s salon series in London, Florent performed recitals with Loïc Félix, William Thomas and Ellie Neate. For NOS’s Alum series, he is looking forward to performing with mezzo soprano Georgia Mae Ellis in September 2025.

Florent was official pianist of the 2022 and 2025 Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition in Dublin and the 2025 Elizabeth Connell Prize in London. In July 2025, he is staff pianist for Edith Wien’s International Meistersinger Akademie in Germany.

Florent has worked on a number of opera productions as a vocal coach/répétiteur/assistant conductor including Zemlinsky’s Eine Florentinische Tragödie (Fondation Royaumont/Opéra de Rennes), Falstaff (Royaumont), Carmen (Opera Holland Park, Buxton Festival), Die Zauberflöte (Opera North), Georgiana (Buxton Festival), Delibes’s Margot La Rouge (Opera Holland Park) and Handel’s Arminio (Royal Opera House). He looks forward to working on Handel’s Giustino in August/September 2025 at the Royal Opera House.

Florent curated a recital of songs and chamber music works by Pauline Viardot, performed by the postgraduate singers of the Guildhall School at Milton Court Concert Hall, and was music director of the winter postgraduate opera scenes in 2022.​

Florent was an ENOA Young Artist, a Britten-Pears Young Artist, a laureate of the Fondation Royaumont and a member of the Académie du Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. He studied solo and collaborative piano at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio in London.

Florent holds dual citizenship from France and the UK.