Elin Manahan Thomas

Born and bred in Swansea, before graduating from Clare College Cambridge in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, Elin is fast coming to light as one of Wales’s leading young sopranos. In 2007 she released her début album with Universal Classics and Jazz, Eternal Light, which entered the classical charts at number two. Elin is the first singer ever to record Bach’s Alles mit Gott, a birthday ode written in 1713 and discovered in 2005. Elin made her début at the Lincoln Center New York and the San Francisco Symphony Hall with the Mozart Requiem in 2006, and the Birmingham Symphony Hall with the Fauré Requiem; and she was the subject of an S4C flyon-the-wall documentary which was nominated in the 2007 Celtic Film Festival. She first received great acclaim for her ‘Pie Jesu’ on Naxos’ awardwinning recording of the Rutter Requiem, and was praised as soloist in Bach’s St Matthew Passion at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, under Sir John Eliot Gardiner. 2007 saw her perform in Classic FM’s fifteenth birthday concert, at Songs of Praise’s ‘The Big Sing’ at the Royal Albert Hall, at the Westminster Abbey Christmas Concert; and in 2008 Elin performed the World Première of Sir John Tavener’s Requiem in Liverpool Cathedral (also recorded for EMI) and made her début at the Wigmore Hall in the role of Belinda (Dido and Aeneas) for Paul McCreesh.  Elin studied as a post-graduate at the Royal College of Music, and was awarded the Ted Moss and Bertha Stach-Taylor Lieder Prize. In 2005 she was a finalist in the prestigious Joaninha Award. Future projects include the Songs of Praise Messiah special from Birmingham Town Hall; a British tour of recitals with the Academy of Ancient Music; Harvey Passion and Resurrection at the Casa de Musica, Porto; an anniversary concert for the RWCMD in Llandaff Cathedral; Mendelssohn Elijah in St David’s Hall with BBC NOW; Bach St John Passion with Stephen Layton in St John Smith’s Square; Rutter Mass for the Children in Cadogan Hall; performances in the Edinburgh Festival; and a recording of Buxtehude Membra Jesu Nostri with the Purcell Quartet