Helen Charlston won 1st prize in 2018 London Handel Singing Competition and was a finalist in the 2019 Grange Festival International Singing Competition. She was a Rising Star of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; and is a member of Les Arts Florissants Jardin des Voix 2021/22. Helen is a BBC New Generation Artist and a City Music Foundation Artist. Recent concert highlights include Handel Messiah: Reimagined (London Handel Orchestra/Laurence Cummings); Bach Matthew Passion (Gabrieli Consort and Players); Dussek Mass in C (Academy of Ancient Music/Richard Egarr); Bach B Minor Mass (Slovenia Philharmonic Orchestra/Stephen Layton). Solo recitals have taken Helen to Wigmore Hall, Barbican Sound Unbound, Oxford Lieder, York Early Music Festival, Händel-festspiele Halle and Korčula Baroque Festival. During the hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic she commissioned Isolation Songbook: a collection of songs by 15 composers responding to lockdown. The CD was released by Delphian Records in March 2021. Operatic roles include Messaggera & Prosperpina/L’Orfeo (Monteverdi), First Witch/Dido and Aeneas, Olga/Eugene Onegin, Florence Pike/Albert Herring, Ino/Semele, Sara/Tobias and the Angel (Dove), Dinah/Trouble in Tahiti (Bernstein), Dido/Dido is Dead (Rhiannon Randle) and Sarah/Blue Electric (Tom Smail). Helen began singing as chorister and head chorister of the St Albans Abbey Girls Choir. She studied music and was a choral scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge.
