Catriona Morison

Praised for her richly coloured voice and compelling musical expression, Scottish mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison has established herself as a versatile and sought after artist on the international stage. Her wide ranging repertoire spans from the Baroque to the late Romantic period, and she is equally at home on the concert platform and opera stage, where her distinctive combination of warmth, vocal richness, and expressive intensity has earned her critical acclaim.

The 2026/27 season brings a wealth of significant highlights, debuts, and eagerly anticipated returns. She opens the season in Tokyo with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and Lorenzo Viotti with Franz Schmidt’s Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln, followed by Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the Orchestre National de Lyon and Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider at the Auditorium de Lyon. She then tours Spain with the Tonhalle Düsseldorf and Ádám Fischer in Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, before returning to the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra for Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 under Tarmo Peltokoski.

Mozart’s Requiem features prominently throughout the season, with performances alongside the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg under Trevor Pinnock and the Munich Philharmonic under Manfred Honeck. Her collaboration with Manfred Honeck continues with Mendelssohn’s Elias at the Musikverein in Vienna and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, followed by performances with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Konzerthaus Vienna. She also makes her debut with Paavo Järvi and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

At the Salzburg Easter Festival, Catriona Morison continues her collaboration with the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko in Wagner’s Ring cycle, making her role debut as Fricka in Kirill Serebrennikov’s new production of Die Walküre. She closes the season with both a house and role debut at the Semperoper Dresden as Adriano in Wagner’s early opera Rienzi, in a new production by Eva-Maria Höckmayr conducted by Patrick Hahn.

As in the forthcoming season, Gustav Mahler’s music has played a prominent role in Catriona Morison’s concert repertoire in recent years. In a single season, she performed his Symphony No. 2 across four continents, reflecting the particular significance of Mahler’s music within her repertoire. Her concert work encompasses major works by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler and Verdi, alongside songs by Alma Mahler, Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer and Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder. She made her BBC Proms debut with Elgar’s Sea Pictures under Elim Chan in 2019 and has since appeared with leading orchestras including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Bamberg and Vienna Symphony Orchestras, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Rotterdam and Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestras.

Previous operatic highlights include Fricka in Das Rheingold at the Salzburg Easter Festival, and the Strauss roles of Der Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier in semi staged concert performances at the Bavarian State Opera and with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. Her operatic repertoire also encompasses include Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther, Hänsel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Maddalena in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Nicklausse in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, and Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea. She has appeared at leading international opera houses and festivals including the Hamburg State Opera, Cologne Opera, Bergen National Opera, the Deutsches Nationatheater Weimar, the Salzburg Festival, where she participated in the Young Singers Project under Franz Welser-Möst, as well as the Salzburg Whitsun and Easter Festivals, the Edinburgh International Festival and the Gstaad Festival.

Her artistic relationships span both longstanding collaborations and new partnerships with many of today’s leading conductors, including Kirill Petrenko, Semyon Bychkov, Fabio Luisi, Jakub Hrůša, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Donald Runnicles, Jaap van Zweden, Ádám Fischer, Elias Grandy, Tarmo Peltokoski and Jonathan Nott.

Art song remains an important part of Catriona Morison’s artistic work, with regular appearances on the international recital circuit at venues including the Wigmore Hall, the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Sydney Opera House’s Utzon Room, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, the Cologne Philharmonie and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Her festival appearances include the Heidelberger Frühling, the Edinburgh International Festival, Leeds Lieder, the Oxford Lieder Festival, the Schubertiade in Hohenems and the Schubertíada Vilabertran. Her first solo recording The Dark Night Has Vanished was released on Linn Records in 2021, and duet recording ECHOES, was released on AVI in 2024.

Born into a musical family in Edinburgh, Catriona Morison graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with Distinction and started her career as a member of the ensemble of Oper Wuppertal where she expanded her repertoire with a range of key roles for lyric mezzo-soprano. She gained international recognition when she won both the Main Prize and Song Prize at the prestigious BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 2017.