Rowan Pierce

Soprano Rowan Pierce specializes in Baroque music but has a diverse repertory stretching forward to world premieres. She won an impressive array of prizes during her student years in the 2010s. Pierce was born in Saltburn-by-the-Sea in England's North Yorkshire region in 1990. She grew up in an environment where friends and family enjoyed amateur music-making. Her great-great-grandfather had conducted a choral society in Keileigh, where legendary Kathleen Ferrier had sung a solo in Handel's Messiah; the family possessed a score of the work autographed by Ferrier. After working for three years as a school teaching assistant, Pierce enrolled on a scholarship at the Royal College of Music in 2011, when she was 21. There, she studied with Amanda Roocroft and Simon Lepper. Her student years were marked by major prizes and honors, including the inaugural Schubert Society Singer Prize in 2014 and the President's Award at the Royal College of Music in 2017, the latter bestowed by the Prince of Wales, the future King Charles. Pierce's career benefited from her participation in several artist-development programs; she was a Britten Pears Young Artist, a Harewood Artist at the English National Opera, and a Rising Star of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She made her recording debut in 2019 on the Linn Records label with the album Henry Purcell: The Cares of Lovers. Pierce has appeared with various major orchestras, including those with a historical performance orientation (the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Academy of Ancient Music, and the Dunedin Consort, among others), and modern-instrument groups such as the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. She made her debut at the BBC Proms with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Royal Albert Hall in 2017 and has made many appearances at London's Wigmore Hall. Pierce has toured Europe, North America, and South America, appearing at, among other major U.S. venues, the Kennedy Center in Washington in a recital with keyboardist Richard Egarr and Baroque string player William Carter. Her repertory emphasizes Baroque music but extends into the 20th century and beyond; she performed Mahler's Symphony No. 4 in G major with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and she has premiered works by such composers as Iain Bell and Julian Philips. In 2023, Pierce joined baritone Roderick Williams and accompanist Christopher Glynn on the Signum Classics album Schubert in English, Vol. 4.
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