Rachel Croash & Deborah Collins

Rachel is an exciting emerging soprano from Dublin, recently graduated with a masters degree in performance from the Royal Irish Academy of Music where she has taken roles in a number of student productions.

Oratorio engagements include Mozart’s Requiem and Vaughan Williams’ A Serenade to Music at The National Concert Hall, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle with The Culwick Choral Society and Mozart’s Vesperae Solennes de Confessore and Bach Cantata BWV 41 Jesu, nun sei gepreiset at St.Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh.

She has performed in recital for Lismore Opera Festival, Opera Ireland, Opera Theatre Company, Wexford Festival Opera, The Contemporary Music Centre and the Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition.

She has sung in concert for The Drogheda International Classical Music Series, The Glasnevin Musical Society, conducted by Colman Pearce, Lyric Opera in Puccini by Candlelight, conducted by John Gibbons and recently made her debut with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in a lunchtime concert conducted by Christopher Bell. Rachel has also had the privilege of performing at the Metropolitan Club, New York, where An Taoiseach Enda Kenny was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Irish-US Council.

Roles include Miss.Wordsworth Albert Herring, Fox The Cunning Little Vixen, Parasha Mavra, Woman Greed (RIAM), Gorm Flatpack (Ulysess Theatre Company), Narrator The Oldest Woman in Limerick, Banana 2 Things We Throw Away (Wide Open Opera), Ein Frau/Jenny’s girl The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Rough Magic/Opera Theatre Company) Annina La Traviata, Bridesmaid 1 Trial by Jury (Wexford Festival Opera), Frasquita Carmen (RTÉ Concert Orchestra) and Valencienne The Merry Widow (Lyric Opera).

At the Electric Ireland Feis Ceoil, Rachel won the Lieder Prize, Nancy Calthorpe Cup, The Mrs.P.J. Geoghan Memorial Cup and Gus Smith Award and was the winner of the inaugural Mollie Murray Award for most Promising Singer. She was a recipient of the John McCormack Society Bursary and has also been a finalist in the NCH Bernadette Greevy Vocal Bursary. She was recently awarded a Young Emerging Artist Award by Wexford Festival Opera and PwC.