Elin Manahan Thomas
Though she launched her solo vocal career relatively late, Elin Manahan Thomas earned the reputation as one of the finest British sopranos of her generation. Some will hear her voice as more appropriate for Baroque sacred works, and while she has scored great success in that genre, she has also achieved acclaim in a wide range of operatic roles and has sung an eclectic choice of repertory in the concert hall. She has taken roles in operas by Handel, Mozart, Berlioz, Bizet, Poulenc, Britten, Menotti, and others and has garnered much praise on the concert stage in works by J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Orff, Britten, and contemporary composers James MacMillan, Judith Weir, John Tavener, and many others. Thomas has appeared at major concert venues throughout the U.K., Europe, and the U.S. and has sung on BBC televsion and radio. She has recorded for Hyperion, Naxos, Coro, and other labels.
Elin Manahan Thomas was born in Gorseinon, Wales. She sang in church choirs in her youth and became a member of National Youth Choir of Wales and the Swansea Bach Choir as a schoolgirl. From 1995-1998 she studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic at Clare College, Cambridge, on a choral scholarship. She sang in the choir there, often as a soloist, and appeared on several recordings, including on the Collegium Records CD, Blessed Spirit, issued in 2000.
Thomas studied voice with Hazel Wood and, from 1999, sang with the Monteverdi Choir under John Eliot Gardiner. She also sang with other choral groups, including the Sixteen, Gabrieli Consort, Polyphony, and the Cambridge Singers. From 2001, she studied in London at the Royal College of Music, where her teachers included Eiddwen Harrhy. She appeared on the 2003 CD John Rutter: Mass of the Children, also on Collegium Records, where she was soloist in the anthem Come down, O Love divine.
In 2005 she gave the modern premiere of a lost J.S. Bach work Alles mit Gott, a 1713 birthday ode. Thomas married operatic baritone Robert Davies in 2006. In 2007 she appeared at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London as Belinda in a production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. That same year saw the release of her debut solo album, Eternal Light, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment led by Harry Christophers. A collection of arias and other vocal works from the Renaissance and Baroque eras issued by Universal Classics, the CD hit number two on the classical charts in the U.K.
In February 2008 Thomas appeared at Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral in the premiere of John Tavener's Requiem, and the EMI recording of that performance was issued to great acclaim in 2009. On Easter Sunday 2009, Thomas appeared as Mary in Andrew Miller's The Birth of Christ at the Vatican. In December 2011, Thomas performed in Handel's Messiah to acclaim in Norwich and Cardiff, U.K., and at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Zurich Tonhalle Concert Hall.
© TiVo
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Discography
19 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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RUTTER: Requiem / Anthems
Classical - Released by Naxos on Mar 31, 2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mae Hiraeth yn y Môr
Elin Manahan Thomas, Jocelyn Freeman
Classical - Released by Ty Cerdd on Nov 16, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Choral Recital: Monteverdi Choir - Morales / Victoria, T.L. / Clements Non Papa / Mouton (Pilgrimage To Santiago)
Monteverdi Choir, Elin Manahan Thomas, John Eliot Gardiner
Classical - Released by SDG on Jan 1, 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vivaldi: Sacred Works for Soprano and Concertos
Elin Manahan Thomas, Florilegium
Classical - Released by Channel Classics on Jan 1, 2012
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Karl Jenkins : Cantata Memoria (For the Children)
Bryn Terfel, Elin Manahan Thomas, Catrin Finch, Sinfonia Cymru, Karl Jenkins
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on Oct 7, 2016
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Pergolesi: Stabat Mater
Florilegium, Elin Manahan Thomas, Robin Blaze
Classical - Released by Channel Classics on Jun 8, 2010
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Eternal Light
Classical - Released by Decca (UMO) on Jan 1, 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Let The Bright Seraphim
Armonico Consort, Elin Manahan Thomas, Crispian Steele-Perkins
Classical - Released by Signum Records on Jul 2, 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Purcell: Dido & Aeneas
Elin Manahan Thomas, Armonico Consort, Christopher Monks
Opera - Released by Signum Records on Jun 1, 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ravish'd with Sacred Extasies
Classical - Released by CORO on Sep 1, 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Cantata Memoria - For The Children
Bryn Terfel, Elin Manahan Thomas, Catrin Finch, Sinfonia Cymru, Karl Jenkins
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on Oct 7, 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lazarus Requiem
Elin Manahan Thomas, Thomas Walker, Rachael Lloyd
Classical - Released by Signum Records on Apr 2, 2012
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Papa Haydn
Classical - Released by Anhrefn Records on Jul 27, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
John Brunning: Swansongs, Songs of Remembrance
Elin Manahan Thomas, Daniel Grimwood
Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released by Signum Records on Nov 9, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Poetry Serenade
Elin Manahan Thomas, Juliette Pochin, Jon Christos, Nick Garrett
Classical - Released by Signum Classics on Sep 29, 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Morfydd Owen: Portrait of a Lost Icon
Classical - Released by Ty Cerdd on Apr 21, 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Elgar: The Starlight Express
Sir Andrew Davis, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Elin Manahan Thomas, Roderick Williams, Simon Callow
Theatre Music - Released by Chandos on Nov 1, 2012
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
John Blow: Venus and Adonis (Wigmore Hall Live)
Theatre of the Ayre, Elizabeth Kenny, Elin Manahan Thomas, Sophie Daneman, Roderick Williams
Opera - Released by Wigmore Hall Live on Jan 31, 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mae Hiraeth yn y Môr
Elin Manahan Thomas, Jocelyn Freeman
Classical - Released by Tŷ Cerdd Records on Nov 16, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo