Last updated: 06 April 2009
Jury member: Â鶹Éç Cardiff Singer of the World 2009 and Song Prize
Ann Murray, mezzo-soprano, was born in Dublin and studied with Frederick Cox at the Royal Manchester College of Music.
She has close links with English National Opera, for whom she has sung Handel's Xerxes and Ariodante and Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where her roles have included Cherubino, Dorabella, Despina, Idamantes, Sifare, the Composer, Octavian, Rosina, Amaltea, Ruggiero and Giulio Cesare.
She has appeared with the world's great orchestras and conductors in the major concert halls and has been a regular guest at the Â鶹Éç Promenade Concerts. Her discography reflects both her broad concert and recital repertoire and also her great operatic roles.
Her operatic engagements have taken her to Hamburg, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Cologne, Amsterdam, Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, New York, the Vienna State Opera, and notably, the Bavarian State Opera. She is an Honorary Doctor of Music at the National University of Ireland, a Kammersängerin at the Bavarian State Opera and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music.
In the 2002 Golden Jubilee Queen's Birthday Honours she was appointed an honorary Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
