The mezzosoprano Rowan Hellier is celebrated for her spellbinding stage presence and her psychologically nuanced interpretations, in which intellect and sensuality connect with »focus, drama and clarity«.

Hellier performed on opera stages such as the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, at the Welsh National Opera as well as the Royal Ballet and Opera in a first performance of Philip Glass’ The Trial. As a member of the Internationalen Opernstudios der Staatsoper Unter den Linden under the artistic direction of Daniel Barenboim, Hellier received a stipend from the Liz Mohn Kultur- und Musikstiftung.

Hellier has performed with numerous leading orchestras worldwide in her role as a concert singer, for example the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra as well as the Seattle Symphony Orchestra.

Furthermore, she has worked with conductor Nicholas Collon at the Bregenzer Festival in the orchestral song cycle woman.life.song, as well as with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and performed the piece under André de Ridder with the London symphony Orchestra in St Luke’s.

Among her concert engagements count performances in the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Müpa Budapest, the Château de Versailles with The King’s Consort as well as cooperations with Trevor Pinnock and Friends. She has performed with the Dunedin Consort, especially as a mezzosoprano soloist in its recording of Mozart’s Requiem, which received a Gramophone Award. She also performed with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, with Ensemble Resonanz in a live stream of Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium in cooperation with the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Bachfest Leipzig and gave her debut in the Shanghai Concert Hall with the renowned Kuss Quartett.

As a creator and curator of diverse new opera and song formats, Hellier often dedicates herself to the stories of women and crosses boundaries between genre, discipline and aesthetic in the process, in order to create new perspective on the classical performance practice. Her cooperation with composer Kate Whitley and poet Hollie McNish, for example, led to Gorgeous Beasts, a piece that was commissioned by the Oxford International Song Festival and performed there for the first time. Following that, the piece was performed in the context of the programme wom3n at Wigmore Hall for the international women’s day 2022; a programme which was dedicated exclusively to female composers.