Biography
Portuguese soprano Mariana Rodrigues has just completed her MA (Distinction) at the Royal Academy of Music in London with a full scholarship, under Marie Vassiliou, Raymond Connell, James Baillieu, Joseph Middleton and Philip Sunderland, where she was awarded a DipRAM. She also graduated from her BMus with Honours 1st Class in 2023 and awarded an LRAM.
Rodrigues was a soloist for Academy Song Circle, Academy Voices, Resounding Shores, and the Bach in Leipzig series where she worked with Masaaki Suzuki, Philippe Herreweghe, Rachel Podger, John Butt, Peter Whelan, Dame Jane Glover, Elizabeth Kennedy, Yvonne Kenny, Margaret Faultless, Nicholas Mulroy, Eamon Dougan, amongst others.
Mariana has won the Isabel Jay Memorial Prize, Edna Bralesford Vocal Prize, Regency Award and Flora Nielsen Prize, and was Very Highly Commended for the Nancy Nuttal Early Music Competition.
She has participated in Masterclasses with renowned singers such as Iestyn Davies, Dame Felicity Lott, Joanne Lunn, Christian Gerhaher and Lucy Crowe, amongst others. And with pianists Malcolm Martineau and Hermut Hoell.
Recent opera roles include Lucia (Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor), Tirésias (Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias), Serpetta (Mozart’s La finta giardiniera), Clorinda (Rossini’s La Cenerentola), Despina (Mozart’s Don Giovanni), Cobweb (Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Nanetta (Verdi’s Falstaff) for RAM Vocal Faculty Opera Scenes; Damon (Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes) for Muziektheatre Transparant De Singel (Antwerp) with Korneel Bernolet; Dalmira/Peregrina in the modern premier of the Brazilian opera “Entremez da Peregrina” (anonymous composer, 1770); Cupid (Blow’s Venus and Adonis) and Ariadné (Lully’s Ballet royal de la Naissance de Vénus) for the Baroquestock and Surrey Bach festival, and Dido (Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas) with Yvonne Howard as Sorceress and Philip Sunderland conducting.
Upcoming roles include Ms. Slender in Salieri’s Falstaff for the Baroquestock Festival at the end of November.
Recent engagements include a concert in Cripta de la Sagrada Familia with Bachcelona, a solo recital with Oxford Bach Soloists (“Bach at the salon”) on Anna Magdalena Bach’s music, a lecture recital with Ellen Rosand and Istante Collective (“Barbara Strozzi at 50: The composer’s voice”) at the Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi in Venice. “No man is an island”, “Tell me the truth about love – is Puccini baroque?”, “BaroqueSHOT” for the Baroquestock Festival. A tour with Orquestra XXI and Dinis Sousa singing Fauré’s Requiem, Bach’s St John Passion with Oxford Bach Soloists and “Out of the Deep” with Vache Baroque. Sir John Clerk’s soprano solo cantata with Dunedin Consort, and Billy Cowie’s song cycle live premiere with Chantefable.
Recent festival appearances include Bachcelona, Bloomsbury, Baroquestock, Islington, Surrey Bach and Vilalte in the south of France.
Young Artist Programmes for the 2025/2026 season include: Vache Baroque James Bowman Young Artist, Bachcelona AKADEMIE with Paul Agnew and Lluís Vilamajó, first ever Concertist Fellow with Oxford Bach Soloists, BREMF Emerging Artist with Chantefable and Next Generation Artist with Sestina Music.
