Soloists

Hilary Cronin

Winner of both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2021 London Handel International Singing Competition, Hilary Cronin made her debut at the Halle Handel Festival in Francesca Cuzzoni: Handel’s Diva and at the St Magnus Festival with Florilegium.

She has enjoyed a long association with The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, her engagements including tours of J. S. Bach B Minor Mass, Christmas Oratorio and Music of Consolation – Music by J. S. Bach, Schein and Schütz and Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato.

Concert highlights have included tours of St John Passion with VOCES8 and St Matthew Passion with Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Sestina, Beethoven Choral Fantasia with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Blow and Purcell with The English Concert, Fauré Requiem at Teatro La Fenice, Handel Chandos Anthems with Arcangelo, Dixit Dominus with La Nuova Musica, Messiah with English Chamber Orchestra, Irish Baroque Orchestra, London Handel Orchestra, London Mozart Players and The Sixteen and Silete venti for the London Handel Festival, Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Ode to Purcell on tour with Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Telemann Cantatas on tour with Solomon’s Knot and Vaughan Williams Benedicite with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Recent engagements have incuded Galatea Acis and Galatea, Oriana Amadigi, Brockes Passion and Virtú / Damigella L’Incoronazione di Poppea with The English Consort, Piacere Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno with Early Opera Company at Buxton International Festival, the B Minor Mass and L’Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato on tour with English Baroque Soloists, the Christmas Oratorio with Oxford Bach Soloists, the St John Passion with BBC Philharmonic, J. S. Bach Cantatas with London Handel Orchestra, Bach, the Universe and Everything and Mendelssohn Symphony No. 2 with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Barber Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with The Royal Orchestral Society, Messiah with Britten Sinfonia, the Hallé, Huddersfield Choral Society, The Really Big Chorus and The Sixteen, Silete venti with The King’s Consort and Haydn Nelson Mass with The Sixteen. She also samg Haydn Nelson Mass at the Newbury Festival and appeared in Command Performance: Music for an Empress with Academy of Ancient Music.

Engagements during 2024 / 2025 currently include J. S. Bach Actus Tragicus with Dunedin Consort, Cantatas with The English Concert and London Handel Orchestra, the St John Passion and Messiah with Polyphony, the St Matthew Passion and Bellezza Il Trionfo del tempo e del disinganno with Irish Baroque Orchestra, Fauré Requiem with Royal Northern Sinfonia, the title role in Esther with The English Consort, Messiah with Huddersfield Choral Society and London Handel Orchestra, First Harlot Samson and Belinda Dido and Aeneas with The Gabrieli Consort and Haydn Nelson Mass with The Sixteen. She will also return to Newbury Festival to sing Beethoven Missa Solemnis with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, record Messiah with Irish Baroque Orchestra and sing Elena Langer’s Love and Endings at Leicester International Music Festival.

Selected by BBC Music Magazine as a Rising Star for 2022, Hilary Cronin studied at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and was a Robinson Hearn, Trinity College London and Dame Susan Morden Scholar. Conductors with whom she has worked include Sofi Jeannin, David Bates, Harry Bicket, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Harry Christophers, Jonathan Cohen, Jonathan Cohen, Laurence Cummings, Maxim Emelyanychev, John Eliot Gardiner, Nicholas Kraemer, Stephen Layton, Sir András Schiff and Peter Whelan.

Her recordings include Second Lady Dido and Aeneas with La Nuova Musica on Pentatone SACD and Telemann Donner-Ode with Solomon’s Knot on cpo.

Photo: Helena Cooke