Last season marked an incredible achievement for Carolyn as she celebrated her recording legacy with the release of her 100th album as a featured solo artist. Over the last twenty-five years of her career, she has sung with countless world-class musicians, and these recordings serve as a testament to both her versatility as an artist and the scope of her repertoire. In 2024, she was awarded an OBE in the King’s New Year Honours, was elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, and was the winner of the Gramophone Artist of the Year Award.
On the opera stage, she has appeared with English National Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Scottish Opera, and Opéra de Paris, amongst others. She regularly performs at the BBC Proms and with orchestras including the Bach Collegium Japan, Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and numerous orchestras in the UK and USA. A recent highlight was her debut at Berlin Staatsoper, singing Créuse in a new Peter Sellers production of Charpentier’s Médée, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.
A consummate recitalist, Carolyn Sampson appears regularly at the Wigmore Hall and has given recitals at the Oxford International Song Festival, Leeds Lieder, Saintes and Aldeburgh Festivals, as well as at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Barcelona, Freiburg, Oper Frankfurt, Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin, Vienna Konzerthaus, Carnegie Hall, and on tour in Japan.
Carolyn has an extensive discography, appearing on the Harmonia Mundi, BIS, Hyperion, Virgin Classics, DG Archiv, Linn Records, BIS, and Vivat labels. Her recording with Ex Cathedra, A French Baroque Diva, won the recital award in the 2015 Gramophone Awards, and her disc of Bach Cantatas with Freiburger Barockorchester was awarded a Diapason d’Or. Recent seasons have seen the release of many acclaimed recordings, notably Carolyn’s first solo orchestra CD, Canteloube Chants d’Auvergne with Tapiola Sinfonietta and Pascal Rophé, and the acclaimed album Trennung: Songs of Separation with Kristian Bezuidenhout, both under the BIS label.
This season includes Haydn’s Die Schöpfung/Creation with both the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris under Masato Suzuki at the Paris Philharmonie and with the CBSO under Kazuki Yamada, another European tour with Bach Collegium Japan, solo programmes with La Scintilla at Opernhaus Zurich with Riccardo Minassi and the Freiburger Barockorchester, and returns to the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Dresdner Philharmonie.
