Maureen Brathwaite studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she won the Capital Radio Anna Instone Memorial Award and the Ian Fleming Award, which enabled her to continue her vocal studies in Florence. She was also a chosen ‘Soliste de Radio France’.

 

Her operatic engagements have included Frasquita Carmen, Strawberry Woman Porgy and Bess and Fire/Nightingale L’Enfant et les Sortilèges for Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Glyndebourne Touring Opera; Leila Les Pêcheurs de Perles for Opera Holland Park; Clara Porgy and Bess for the BBC Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and at the Sala Atlântico, Lisbon; Lily Porgy and Bess for The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Sandman/Dew Fairy Hansel and Gretel for English National Opera; Despina Così fan tutte and Donna Elvira Don Giovanni for Welsh National Opera; Pamina Die Zauberflőte at the Harare International Festival; Flowermaiden Parsifal for the BBC Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and at Le Châtelet Theatre, Paris; Adina L’elisir d’amore and Vertu, a role she created for the world premiere of Les Nègres (Micael Levinas) at Lyon Opera and Geneva Opera.

Maureen Brathwaite’s wide concert and oratorio repertoire ranges from Messiah and The Creation through the Mozart Masses to the Beethoven Missa Solemnis, the Requiems of Brahms, Fauré and Verdi, The Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss, Britten’s War Requiem, Tippett’s A Child of Our Time, Orff Carmina Burana, Porgy and Bess (the roles of Bess and Clara in the various concert versions) and African Sanctus (David Fanshawe).

Among the orchestras she has appeared with are the BBC Concert Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Orchestra of St John’s, Smith Square, Orchestre National de Lyon, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under conductors including Semyon Bychkov, Mark Elder, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Simon Rattle, Franz Brüggen, Andrew Litton and Wayne Marshall both as conductor and pianist in their successful recital duo.

 

Maureen Brathwaite’s engagements have included Porgy and Bess with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Leila Les Pêcheurs de Perles for Northampton Festival Opera, the premiere of A Shetland Odyssey for Tête à Tête Productions, Porgy and Bess with the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and with RAI Symphony Orchestra in Palermo and Turin and a series of concerts with the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra. She performed the role of Virtu in Les Nègres (Micael Levinas) at Freiburg Opera and Edna Tobias and the Angel (Jonathan Dove) for the reopening of the Young Vic Theatre and at Oundle Festival.

 

Most recently she appeared as The Forester’s Wife Cunning Little Vixen at Oundle Festival and in a series of concerts entitled Exposure for ROH2 at the Linbury Studio Theatre of the Royal Opera House.

 

Forthcoming engagements include Carmina Burana with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi.