Dame Sarah Connolly
Mezzo-Soprano
Sarah Connolly was made a DBE in the 2017 Birthday Honours, having previously been awarded a CBE in the 2010 New Year Honours. In 2020 she was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society in recognition of her outstanding services to music.
In 2023 she was awarded The King’s Medal for Music, an award given annually to an outstanding individual or group of musicians who have had a major influence on the musical life of the nation.
She has sung at the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Lucerne, Salzburg, and Tanglewood Festivals and the BBC Proms where, in 2009, she was a soloist at the Last Night. Opera engagements have taken her around the world from the Metropolitan Opera to the Royal Opera House, the Paris Opera, La Scala Milan, the Vienna and Munich State Operas and the Bayreuth, Glyndebourne and Aix-en-Provence Festivals.
Highlights in her 2025/26 season included Jocasta in Oedipus Rex for The Norwegian Opera & Ballet and Mrs. Patrick De Rocher in Dead Man Walking for the English National Opera.
On the concert platform, she sings Handel’s Messiah with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra under Christophe Rousset; Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra under Matthew Halls; Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra under Alexander Shelley and the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra under Joshua Weilerstein; Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra under Joel Sandelson; and Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.
Dame Sarah is a Vocal Professor and Fellow at her alma mater the Royal College of Music, a Trustee of the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, and Ambassador for the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras' Apprentices Programme.
