Biography

British-American Mezzo-Soprano Louisa Stuart-Smith is currently studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for the Artist Diploma in Vocal Performance under the tutelage of Professor Yvonne Kenny. Louisa is grateful to be a Sidney Perry Foundation Scholar and to be generously supported by the Worshipful Company of Chartered Surveyors and the Josephine Baker Trust. She recently graduated from the MPerf in Vocal Performance at GSMD with Distinction, during which she held a Guildhall School Trust Scholarship.

Louisa has performed widely in concert, including as a soloist with the Carnegie Ensemble from the BBC Symphony Orchestra in their Baroque Concerts and looks forward to joining them for a fifth time this December. Most recently, she covered the role of Dorabella in Teatro Lorenzo Da Ponte’s production of Cosí Fan Tutte in Vittorio Veneto, Italy; she won a runner-up prize (Encouragement Award) in the Maryland District of the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition (2024); she was the winner of the Audience Prize in the Chartered Surveyors’ Vocal Competition (2024) and she was a Runner-Up in the Finals of the London Bach Society’s Bach Singers Prize Competition (2024). This season, she made her debut as the Mezzo-Soprano Soloist in Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle in Romsey Abbey and has joined Roderick Williams in concert as a soloist in his 22 Mansfield Street Salon concert. Additionally, she will debut as the Alto Soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the London Mozart Players in Mayfield, as well as with the Grange Choral Society and Orchestra in Dorset. In the coming months, she looks forward to collaborating with Graham Johnson in preparation for a concert of French song at Milton Court Concert Hall. Her solo concert work further includes performing regularly for City of London Livery Companies, in oratorios including Handel’s Dixit Dominus in St John’s College Chapel (2022), in concert with Green Opera (2022) and solo recitals.

Louisa is a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, where she held a choral scholarship and performed numerous operatic roles, including the title roles in Serse (2022), Rinaldo (2021) and Giulio Cesare in Egitto (2019). She also sang the roles of Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro (2021), L’Architecture in Les Arts Florissants (2019) and La Damigella in La Liberazione di Ruggiero (2020). With Southgate Youth Opera, she performed as Papagena in The Magic Flute (2016).

Other operetta and acting roles have included Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore (Minack Theatre, 2021), Tessa in The Gondoliers (2022), Peep-Bo in The Mikado (2019), Joan in Saint Joan (ADC Theatre 2019), Mother in Machinal (2019), and Voltore in Volpone (2019), as well as performing regularly in comedy sketch shows with the Cambridge Footlights. Musical theatre roles include Sally Bowles in Cabaret (2018), Ado Annie in Oklahoma! (2017) and Eponine in Les Miserables (2015).

Louisa is enthusiastic about performing new works and premiered American composer Mateo Lincoln’s song cycle The World is Too Much With Us in 2021. Recently, she performed a selection of works by Cheryl Frances-Hoad at Milton Court Concert Hall, following collaboration with the composer.

As a child, Louisa performed as the ‘Choir Boy soloist’ in Marin Alsop’s production of Bernstein’s Mass (2010, Royal Festival Hall). She sang in the Children’s Chorus in Carmen (2015, ENO), Der Rosenkavalier (2012, ENO),Turandot (2009, ENO), Hansel und Gretel (2009, Opera Holland Park) and La Boheme (2008, ENO).

In addition to her career as an opera singer, Louisa holds BA and MPhil degrees in History of Art from the University of Cambridge, and is a keen runner and a linguist.