Lynette Alcántara: Biography
Lynette Alcántara
© Gerald Place, Studio Venosa
Australian-born mezzo-soprano, Lynette Alcántara studied at Monash and Melbourne Universities and was a member of the Young Artists’ Encouragement Programme with the Victoria State Opera Company. She was a choral exhibitioner in the choir of Trinity College, Melbourne. Whilst at university Lynette won numerous prizes and scholarships and in 1991 won the National Liederfest Prize and a Menzies scholarship which enabled her to travel to Britain.
Lynette moved to England in 1992 to further her vocal studies with the late Audrey Langford. In 1993 she was appointed as a staff alto with the BBC Singers, singing at the funeral of Princess Diana. She has sung with many of the leading ensembles in Britain and appears regularly for BBC radio and TV and frequently at the Royal Albert Hall and on the South Bank.
Lynette has sung operatic roles from Monteverdi and Handel through to Stravinsky and Simon Holt including: Dorabella, Cherubino, Third Lady, Baba the Turk, Dinah (Trouble in Tahiti) and Selene (Handel’s Berenice). Recent works include The Governess in Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester conducted by Gianandrea Noseda for the BBC and Kirov Opera, and the role of Marcolfa in Simon Holt’s The Nightingale’s to Blame for die Wiener Taschenoper, conductor Peter Rundel, which she also understudied for Opera North. Lighter repertoire includes a Model in Weill’s The Firebrand of Florence for the BBC Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Davis recording, and the roles of Leila in Iolanthe for Jane Glover and Fiametta in The Gondoliers conducted by Barry Wordsworth, both for BBC Radio 3 and BBC TV. Recent work includes covering the Alto role in Deborah Warner’s new staging of Handel’s Messiah for ENO.
On CD she has appeared regularly as soloist for Sir. John Eliot Gardiner and The Monteverdi Choir including ‘Shallow Brown’ on the Gramophone Award-winning disc ‘Londonderry Air-the music of Percy Grainger’, with the Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and on numerous CDs with the BBC Singers, including alto soloist on BBC Music Magazine recording of Vaughan Williams Mass in G minor.
Equally at home on the concert platform, she has appeared at the Spitalfields Festival, the Last Night of the Proms with Sir. Andrew Davis, the Royal Festival Hall and King’s College, Cambridge. Lynette has sung the Mozart Requiem for the BBC and Stephen Cleobury at Fairfield Halls, The Dream of Gerontius, Bach St. Matthew Passion at The Royal Festival Hall and Vivaldi Gloria (both for The Bach Choir and David Hill), and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 for Martyn Brabbins at the Cheltenham Festival. Recent concert highlights included Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky, Mozart C minor Mass, Durufle Requiem, Bach St. Matthew Passion at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford and The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Bliss Pastoral and Berkeley Poems of St. Theresa of Avila and Dvorak Mass in D. 2005 concerts included Haydn Nelson Mass and Mozart Solemn Vespers for The Bach Choir, Tippett ‘A Child of our Time’ for CUMS Chorus in Kings College Cambridge, Montsalvatge 5 Canciones Negras and Mozart Concert Aria K505 with the Cambridge University Graduate Orchestra, Mozart Requiem in Amelia and Rome and Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol conducted by Gianandrea Noseda at the BBC Proms. Lynette also sang the role of Mary of Bethany in the European premiere of Francis Grier’s The Passion of Jesus of Nazareth.
Lynette also teaches singing to many Cambridge students and is a Fellow and Director of College Music at Wolfson College, Cambridge where she conducts a mixed 40 voice choir. She is vocal coach to the Cambridge University Musical Society Chorus. As a member of the BBC Singers she regularly leads singing workshops as part of the BBC’s education work. In 2007 she lead workshops as part of the GoSing and Play it again initiatives and gave lectures and masterclasses at the University of Melbourne.
Learning work in 2008 included leading vocal workshops around the UK as part of the I'd Do Anything TV programme. Since 2008 Lynette has been Choral Animateur for the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge funded by the national singing programme ‘SingUp’. She is also the singing teacher for the boy choristers of the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge and conducts King's Junior Voices.
