Nina Bennet

Soprano

Nina Bennet studied at the Royal College of Music, before spending the next 20 years performing around the world with choral groups such as the Academy of Ancient Music, Britten Sinfonia Voices, Sonoro and the BBC Singers. 

Having since uncovered a much larger voice, Nina is now becoming established as an exciting dramatic soprano, performing Mendelssohn’s Elijah in Romsey Abbey, Britten’s War Requiem in Haileybury College, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich, Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony in De Montfort Hall, Leicester, Tippett’s A Child of Our Time in Cadogan Hall, and Verdi’s Requiem in Eberbach Abbey, Germany. Nina made her solo Proms debut in the Royal Albert Hall in 2018, singing in the UK premiere of Lera Auerbach’s The Infant Minstrel and His Peculiar Menagerie with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Edward Gardner, and last summer sang with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in the televised Earth Prom to a dramatic film of two giraffes fighting. 

Equally at home in both Jazz and Gospel, she performed in the Duke Ellington Sacred Concerts under Neil Ferris and Will Todd’s Mass in Blue with London Concert Choir in Cadogan Hall. She also performed with the composer and gospel choir conductor Ken Burton in his piece Take Time to Change, and performed a set of jazz standards with members of the Aurora Orchestra in King’s Place, London. 

Despite Covid’s best efforts to stop her, Nina has managed to make her first forays into opera with the parts of Ortlinde in Wagner’s Die Walküre, Lia in an adaptation of Debussy’s L’enfant Prodigue for the Grimeborn Festival 2021, Kathy in Her Day for Coventry’s City of Culture Festival, and Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni for Surrey Opera at the Minack Theatre. 

Future plans include a recording of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, and Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs with the Deutsche Philharmonie Merck.