Described as a “a superb singer actress” (Opera Today), Anglo-Venezuelan soprano Sofia Kirwan-Baez is a Kathleen Ferrier semi-finalist, a Josephine Baker Trust artist, a Sybil Tutton award holder, and a Musicians’ Company Award recipient. Operatic roles include Elle in La Voix Humaine (Barricade Arts & Cumbria Opera), Adina in Elisir d’amore (Wild Arts), Eurydice in Orpheus in the Underworld (RCM Opera Studio), Le Feu in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (RCM Opera Studio), Juno in The Fairy Queen (Theatron Novum), Papagena in The Magic Flute (RCM Opera Studio), and World premieres of works by Jasper Dommett (RWCMD Atmospheres Festival), Marco Galvani (Faded Ink Productions), and Toby Young (Oxford Music Faculty). In Summer 2023, she was called in to cover Eurydice in Longborough Opera’s Orfeo. Roles in opera scenes include Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, Gretel in Hansel & Gretel, and Lisa in Queen of Spades.
A seasoned recitalist, past concert work includes Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire at Birmingham Cathedral (2022), and fully staged at the Midlands Arts Centre (2023). Oratorio performances have comprised Handel’s Messiah with Nevill Holt (2022), Bach’s Trauerode BWV 198 (City Music with Adrian Butterfield), Haydn’s Creation (Mayfield Festival), Mahler’s 4th Symphony, Monteverdi’s Vespers (Cadogan Hall), Vivaldi’s Gloria, Handel’s Dixit Dominus (Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford with Schola Cantorum), Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb, among others. She is making her Wigmore debut in September 2023 as part of their 2023 French Song Exchange, a programme supervised by Felicity Lott and François Le Roux.
Having begun her musical studies with the violin in El Sistema in Caracas (Venezuela), she later started playing the piano, continuing both instruments in the Périgueux Conservatoire. Sofia studied Music at Oxford University and Vocal Performance at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, where she graduated with distinction and was supported by Rotary International. Sofia has been a Huffner Scholar supported by the Sir Gordon Palmer Scholarship in the Royal College of Music Opera School and is a winner of the RCM’s Concerto Competition (2021). She was also a member of Genesis Sixteen (2018-19).
Future engagements include Bach’s B minor mass with Adrian Butterfield, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Jeremy Summerly, and Brighton Early Music Festival’s Bach & Buxtehude concert. Sofia will be performing in the 2023 Oxford International Song Festival as an Emerging Artist in a recital called Tell me the truth about Love.
Updated July 2023. This biography should not be reproduced without asking permission from the National Opera Studio.