Elin Manahan Thomas

Born and bred in Swansea, she was educated at Ysgol Gyfun Gŵyr, and then won a choral scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge where she gained a starred first in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, and completed an MPhil.

After auditioning to Sir John Eliot Gardiner she joined the Monteverdi Choir and in the year 2000 and sang much of the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage. In 2001 she moved to pursue postgraduate vocal studies at the Royal College of Music in London, and went on to sing with The Sixteen, Polyphony, Cambridge Singers and The Gabrieli Consort, as well as pursuing a solo career. She is the first singer ever to record Bach’s Alles mit Gott, a birthday ode written in 1713 and discovered in 2005. She first received great acclaim for her ‘Pie Jesu’ on Naxos’ award-winning recording of the Rutter requiem.

Concert performances include Mozart Vespers in the Mostly Mozart Festival for Harry Chrisophers; Britten’s Death in Venice for Richard Hickox in the QEH; Mozart concert arias with the Gabrieli Consort in the Barbican Hall; Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Peter Schreier in St John’s Smith Square; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Mass in C Minor in King’s College Chapel; Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo in the Snape Maltings; Franz Joesph Haydn’s Heiligemesse and Mozart Vespers on a tour of the USA; the Claudio Monteverdi Vespers in St Mark’s, Venice; Felix Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Palau de Musica, Barcelona; and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in Seoul and Kuala Lumpur. She has performed Judith Weir’s King Harald’s Saga in collaboration with the composer, and premièred Sir John Tavener’s latest work Shunya at his 60th birthday concert.

On the opera stage, Elin has played the part of Pamina (Mozart The Magic Flute), The Governess (Britten Turn of the Screw), Micaela (Bizet Carmen), Ninetta (Mozart La Finta Semplice), Arminda (Mozart La Finta Giardiniera), Despina (Mozart Cosi Fan Tutte), Mermaid (Weber Oberon) and Coryphée (Berlioz Les Troyens) at the Châtelet Theatre, Angelica (Handel Orlando), Constance (Poulenc Dialogue des Carmelites), Lucy (Menotti The Telephone), and Night/Nymph in Henry Purcell’s Fairy Queen. Her first solo album, Eternal Light, recorded with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Harry Christophers, was released in June 2007.