Fiona Kimm, the distinguished British Mezzo Soprano, is known for a wide ranging operatic and concert repertoire.

Education and early career

She studied at the Royal College of Music

Royal College of Music

The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...

 with Meriel St Clair, and at the National Opera Studio

National Opera Studio

The National Opera Studio in London, England was established by the Arts Council as a link between the music colleges and the six main UK opera companies. It was resident at Morley College in Lambeth until 2003, when it gained use for the first time of its own dedicated premises in Chapel Yard,...

 in its inaugural year.

She made her operatic debut as Irene in "Tamerlano" for Musica Nel Chiostro at the Riverside Studios. Her Glyndebourne

Glyndebourne

Glyndebourne is a country house, thought to be about six hundred years old, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England. It is also the site of an opera house which, with the exception of its closing during the Second World War, for a few immediate post-war years, and in 1993 during the...

 debut in 1978 was as 3rd Lady in Die Zauberflöte (in Southern Television's broadcast) and she was given the John Christie Award that year. She joined English National Opera North in 1979, making her debut as Hansel. She appeared with ENO as Fyodor in Boris Godunov

Boris Godunov

Boris Fyodorovich Godunov was de facto regent of Russia from c. 1585 to 1598 and then the first non-Rurikid tsar from 1598 to 1605. The end of his reign saw Russia descend into the Time of Troubles.-Early years:...

in 1980, a role she repeated with the Royal Opera House

Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

 in 1983.

UK

For Glyndebourne Festival and Touring Companies, she has sung 3rd Lady (debut), Celia (La Fedeltà Premiata), Sméraldine (L'Amour des Trois Oranges), Maman/Chatte (L'Enfant et les Sortilèges), Baba the Turk (The Rake's Progress), Sesto (La Clemenza di Tito) and Mme Larina (Eugene Onegin).

For English National Opera

English National Opera

English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...

, roles include Fyodor, Siebel (Faust), Kitchen Boy (Rusalka), Sonya (War and Peace), Diana (Orpheus in the Underworld), Frou-Frou (La Belle Vivette) and Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus).

For Opera North

Opera North

Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays and the Theatre Royal, Newcastle...

, roles include Hansel (debut), Mercedes(Carmen), Rosalind (The Mines of Sulphur), Nicklaus (The Tales of Hoffmann), Julie (Showboat), Olga (Eugene Onegin), Baba the Turk and Maman/Tasse Chinoise/Libellule (L'Enfant et les Sortileges).

For Scottish Opera

Scottish Opera

Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government...

, roles include Clori (L'Egisto)(debut), Schoolboy (Lulu), Olga, Flosshilde (Das Rheingold), Meg (Falstaff), Marcellina (Figaro's Wedding) and Mrs Chin (A Night at the Chinese Opera).

For the Royal Opera House, she has sung Fyodor, Baronne (Chérubin), Comtesse de Coigny (Andrea Chenier), Herodias's Page (Salome).

For English Touring Opera

English Touring Opera

English Touring Opera is an opera company in the United Kingdom. From 1979 to 1992 it was known as Opera 80.- About the company :Opera 80 was founded in 1979 by the Arts Council of Great Britain as the successor to Opera For All; in 1992 the company changed its name to English Touring Opera...

, she has sung Jezibaba (Rusalka) and Kabanicha (Katya Kabanova).

For Garsington Festival Opera she has sung Clairon (Capriccio) and Mistress Quickly (Falstaff) .

She has performed Fricka (Das Rheingold and Die Walküre) for Longborough Festival Opera

Longborough Festival Opera

Longborough Festival Opera is an opera festival held in an opera house in Longborough, a village in north Gloucestershire.Longborough Festival Opera presents a season of high quality opera in the English Cotswolds each June and July It started life in 1991 as Banks Fee Opera...

.

She sang Rosa Mamai (L'Arlesiana) for Holland Park

Holland Park

Holland Park is a district and a public park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in west central London, England.Holland Park has a reputation as an affluent and fashionable area, known for attractive large Victorian townhouses, and high-class shopping and restaurants...

 in the British professional premiere of Cilea’s opera.

She sang Azucena (Il Trovatore) for Stowe Opera.

International

Her roles include Mme Arvidson (Un Ballo in Maschera) for Canadian Opera Company

Canadian Opera Company

The Canadian Opera Company is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and the third largest producer of opera in North America. The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.-History:For 40 years until...

, Mrs Sedley (Peter Grimes) for Frankfurt Opera, The Nurse (Boris Godunov) and Jane's Mother (Snow White) for the Nationale Reisopera, Nancy (Albert Herring) and Electra (Visitations) for Opera Decentralisee and Ursule (Béatrice et Bénédict) for the Berlioz Festival in Lyon.

Amongst the conductors with whom she has sung are Claudio Abbado

Claudio Abbado

Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...

, Bernard Haitink

Bernard Haitink

Bernard Johan Herman Haitink, CH, KBE is a Dutch conductor and violinist.- Early life :Haitink was born in Amsterdam, the son of Willem Haitink and Anna Haitink. He studied music at the conservatoire in Amsterdam...

, Edward Downes

Edward Downes

Sir Edward Thomas "Ted" Downes, CBE was an English conductor, specialising in opera.He was associated with the Royal Opera House from 1952, and with Opera Australia from 1970. He was also well known for his long working relationship with the BBC Philharmonic and for working with the Netherlands...

, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Mark Elder

Mark Elder

Sir Mark Philip Elder, CBE is a British conductor. He is the music director of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, England.-Biography:Elder was born in Hexham, Northumberland, England, the son of a dentist...

, Andrew Davies

Andrew Davies

Andrew Davies may refer to:*Andrew Davies *Andrew Davies , Welsh Labour politician*Andrew R. T. Davies, Welsh Conservative politician*Andrew Davies , Welsh darts player*Andrew Davies , English defender...

, Jacques Delacote

Jacques Delacôte

Jacques Delacôte is a French conductor. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris and the Vienna Music Academy. In 1971, he was chosen the first winner of the Dimitri Mitropoulos Contest. He also served as an assistant to Leonard Bernstein and Darius Milhaud...

, Nicola Luisotti

Nicola Luisotti

Nicola Luisotti is an Italian musician. He has been music director of San Francisco Opera since September 2009 and also serves as principal guest conductor of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.-Early life:...

 and Vassily Petrenko.

Concert repertoire

She has a wide ranging concert and oratorio repertoire and has performed the major works in the UK and internationally. Performances include Margret (Wozzeck) with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...

, Kindertotenlieder with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra is a 96 members professional symphony orchestra. Its main performing venue is the Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore although it has also toured widely in Asia, Europe and the United States...

, The Dream of Gerontius with Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, appearances at the 3 Choirs Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Proms and Huddersfield Festival, including Alfred Shnittke's Seid Wacht und Nuchtern, Stravinsky's Les Noces and Britten's Spring Symphony, the Verdi Requiem in Madrid and Vilnius, Luciano Berio's Folk Songs with the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Henze's Voices with the London Sinfonietta.

Contemporary music

She is widely recognized for her dynamic performances of contemporary music, and has created roles in a number of world premieres, including Wife (Greek), Auntirosa (Baa-Baa Black Sheep), Markolfa (The Nightingale's to Blame) and Ma (House of the Gods), as well as having several new works written specifically for her, including Gary Carpenter’s "For Remembrance" and "The One Alone", with words by Dame Iris Murdoch, Edward Cowie’s "Kate Kelly’s Road Show" and Turnage’s "Songs From Greek". She has performed with top contemporary ensembles including London Sinfonietta

London Sinfonietta

The London Sinfonietta is an English chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London. The ensemble specialises in contemporary music and works across a wide range of genres, performing modern classics alongside world premieres, and includes music by electronica artists as well as folk and...

, Ensemble Modern

Ensemble Modern

Ensemble Modern is a chamber ensemble dedicated to the music of modern composers. Formed in 1980, the group is based in Frankfurt, Germany and made up variously of about twenty members from numerous countries....

, Asko, Nash Ensemble

Nash Ensemble

The Nash Ensemble of London is an acclaimed English chamber ensemble. It was founded by Artistic Director Amelia Freedman in 1964, while she was a student at the Royal Academy of Music, and was named after the Nash Terraces around the Academy...

 and Lontano.

Discography and video

Her recordings include Lament for a Hanging Man by Mark Antony Turnage, Canciones by Simon Holt

Simon Holt

Simon Holt is a British composer.-Biography:Holt was educated at Bolton School. Shortly after graduating from the Royal Northern College of Music, he became firmly established on the new music circuit with a series of commissions and fruitful collaborations with the London Sinfonietta and the Nash...

, Street Scene by Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill

Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

, L'Enfance du Christ by Berlioz and Beatrice Cenci by Berthold Goldschmidt

Berthold Goldschmidt

Berthold Goldschmidt was a German Jewish composer who spent most of his life in England...

. Her recital CD, In Flanders Fields, is the first in a projected series focusing on Music and Conflict, and was the culmination of intensive research into the music and poetry of the First World War and the resulting Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

 recital with pianist Andrew Ball.

Her television and video appearances include Rusalka, L'Enfant et les Sortileges, Salome, Greek and Baa Baa Black Sheep.