Meet Sophie Bevan, one of the UK’s busiest performing and recording artists, and a member of one of the country’s most musical families.
Sophie will be performing Bruckner with the BBC Singers at the 2024 First Night of the Proms. But who is soprano Sophie Bevan?
Who is Sophie Bevan?
Sophie Bevan is a versatile British soprano, at home singing everything from Handel to Thomas Adès, Opera to Songs. She comes from a large musical family, with whom she occasionally performs as part of the Bevan Family Consort, and started singing at a young age – in church choirs and even opera choruses. Sophie is making a much-anticipated return to the concert stage at this year’s BBC Proms following successful treatment for bowel cancer. A busy artist in the studio as well as on the stage, Sophie has dozens of recordings under her belt.
How old is Sophie Bevan?
Sophie was born in Somerset in 1983.
Are Sophie and Mary Bevan related?
Yes, soprano Mary Bevan is Sophie’s younger sister. But that’s only the start, for their brother is baritone Benjamin Bevan and their sister Daisy Bevan is also a soprano. Their father, the late David Bevan was a choirmaster and one of 14 singing siblings; his parents, Roger and Molly Bevan, started the Bevan Family Consort (once the Bevan Family Singers) in the 1970s.
Roger Bevan was the music director at Downside School in Somerset. A performing and recording ensemble made up of both professional and amateur singers from the family, the Bevan Family Consort got together last year to release an album of sacred choral music in memory of David Bevan, called Vidi speciosam.
Who is Sophie Bevan married to?
Sophie Bevan is married to to conductor/composer Ryan Wigglesworth, with whom she has two children. The pair have worked together many times, with Wigglesworth composing his opera The Winter’s Tale, various song cycles and a setting of the Magnificat with her in mind.
Where did she study?
Sophie studied at the Royal College of Music’s ‘Benjamin Britten International Opera School’ and was awarded the Queen Mother Rose Bowl for excellence in performance.
Which operas has she performed in?
Sophie already has quite the variety of roles under her belt. She made her Glyndebourne debut in Handel’s Saul in 2015, and her Metropolitan Opera debut in Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel in 2017. She has appeared in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Idomeneo, Le nozze di Figaro and Die Zauberflöte, Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and Handel’s Tamerlano, among many many others.
What are Sophie Bevan’s best recordings?
Sophie is a regular behind the microphone and has recorded dozens of albums. Some of her best work can be found in Linn Records’s Handel opera recordings, including Samson with John Butt and the Dunedin Consort and La Resurrezione with Harry Bicket and The English Concert. Perfido! was a well-received 2017 album of works by Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart, featuring The Mozartists (released on Signum Classics); that and Songs of Vain Glory (an early Wigmore Hall recital album with pianist Sebastian Wybrew) were two of Sophie’s ‘Rewind’ choices in the May 2023 issue of BBC Music Magazine.
Here's an earlier BBC Music Magazine interview with Sophie Bevan, on the joys of singing Strauss and Mozart.
What's she performing at the 2024 BBC Proms?
Sophie Bevan will be singing Bruckner's setting of Psalm 150 at the First Night of the Proms. The programme also includes Beethoven's gripping Symphony No. 5 and Hallelujah Sim, a brand new work by Anglo-Japanese composer Ben Nobuto.
Elsewhere on the bill, Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto will be performed by pianist Isata Kannah-Mason; the other performers on the night are the BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Elim Chan.
