Louise Macdonald

B i o g r a p h y

Louise Macdonald, Contralto – Biography

 

Louise Macdonald won the Young Singers’ Messiah Competition and performed Handel’s Messiah at Glasgow’s Royal Concert hall. Since then she has given many performances of Oratorio and recitals throughout the country. Her repertoire extends from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion to Tippet’s A Child of Our Time. Louise has sung arias by Lully, Delalande and Charpentier in the first Baroque church of Paris, St. Joseph des Carmelites.

Louise began her career as a member of Scottish Opera. She sang the roles of Kate Pinkerton (Madame Butterfly), Second Bridesmaid (The Marriage of Figaro), and Pepek (The Cunning Little Vixen). She has sung Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana at the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank and has sung Filipievna in Eugene Onegin at the Aberdeen International Youth Festival. With Clarus Theatre Company, Louise sang A Charm of Lullabies in Beckett and Britten at the Demarco European Art Foundation. In a production about the women in the life of Robert Burns, Louise sang solos and duets. With Solar Bear Theatre Company, Louise devised Seeing Voices, incorporating Scots songs and poetry. She won a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival for Dream State, as a member of Theatre Works. Her awards from The Scottish Arts Council include grants for study in Finland and Germany and for a recital in London with Jonathan Papp.

Louise’s most recent award from the SAC has taken her to the Neil Semer Vocal Institute in Aub, Northern Bayern, Germany, where she participated in four concerts as part of the course.

She has completed a tour in Scotland with Trio Vocalize, members of Scottish Opera Orchestra, singing Bach’s Cantata 170, Vergnugte Ruh, songs by Richard Strauss, Poulenc, Scots and English Art Songs.

Louise has recently given a recital in St. Anne’s Lutheran Church, London, sponsored by The Hope Scott Trust.

She is also a Crear Scholar 2013 and has worked intensively with Malcolm Martineau. Invited to sing at the RCS recently, she sang Brahms song for contralto, viola and piano with Malcolm and Scott Dickenson, principal violist of the BBCSSO.