Please do not use any of this biographical material, nor the photos on this web-site for programmes -
please enquire for up to date information.
please enquire for up to date information.
Soprano Sara Wallander-Ross was born near the Arctic Circle in Sweden, where she started her musical training at an early age. She worked as a vocal soloist, violinist and organist whilst at school and then continued her vocal studies together with violin and piano as triple principal study at Kapellsbergs Musikskola, Härnösand, Sweden. Sara moved to England to study singing at the Birmingham Conservatoire and after completing her first class degree she received a postgraduate scholarship at the Franz Liszt Academy, Budapest.
Sara has recently been awarded Oxford Wagner Society's Bayreuth Bursary and shall be travelling to the Bayreuth Festival this August. She was chosen as a finalist in the prestigious London Bayreuth Bursary 2009 for young Wagnerian singers and reached the master classes with Kiri te Kanawa in BBC Radio 2’s opera competition, the ‘Kiri Prize’. She was selected from 400 singers for the semi-final of the international Armel Opera Competition and Festival 2011.
She has studied with some of the world's leading singers and accompanists such as Philip Langridge, John Tomlinson, David Syrus, Sergei Leiferkus, Julius Drake, Sarah Walker, Malcolm Martineau, Nelly Miricioiu, and and the renowned Wagnerian Petra Lang.
Her repertoire stretches from Handel and Mozart through Wagner to 21st Century opera. Roles include Freia / Wellgunde (Das Rheingold); Second Norn / Wellgunde (Götterdämmerung); The Governess (The Turn of the Screw) ‘rich-voiced, poised and with a powerful stage presence’ (Opera); Judit (Bluebeard's Castle); Lady Billows (Albert Herring); Contessa (Le nozze di Figaro) ‘superior vocal delivery’ (Opera Now); The Witch (Hansel and Gretel) 'biggest scene stealer as zappy Bette Midler look-alike’ (Opera) and Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte). Opera excerpts include Lohengrin (Elsa); Tannhäuser (Elisabeth); Die Walküre (Sieglinde); Peter Grimes (Ellen Orford); Don Giovanni (Donna Elvira); Tosca and Don Carlos (Elisabetta). Works with orchestra include Strauss, Four Last Songs; Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire; Mahler, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen; Ravel, Shéhérazade; Wagner, Wesendonklieder and Berlioz, Les Nuits d’été.
Her commitment to opera includes having directed productions such as Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro and The Turn of the Screw. She is also an experienced oratorio soloist and recitalist, prompting praise for her Ravel’s Shéhérazade – ‘stunning in voice and appearance...magical’; in addition to having an extensive song repertoire, extending through German, Russian, English, French and Scandinavian music.
Outside singing, Sara enjoys ball room dancing and kick boxing.
