Kiwi Wins BBC Cardiff Singer Competition

BBC Cardiff Singer Of The World Competition

New Zealand opera singer, Wendy Dawn Thomson was on Tuesday afternoon (UK time)) named as one of the five finalists for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Rosenblatt Recital Series Song Prize which is held this Friday evening (UK time).

The other finalists are from USA, Georgia and the UK. The other singers named are:

Wendy Dawn Thompson - mezzo soprano, New Zealand Andrew Kennedy - tenor, England Nicole Cabell - soprano, USA Quinn Kelsey - baritone, USA Mikhail Kolelishvili, bass Georgia

The main competition finalists will be announced on Thursday night in Cardiff.

The finalists of the BBC CArdiff Singer of the World Competition were selected from 507 singers chosen to audition out of over 700 applicants worldwide. Other well-known New Zealand singers to have made the finals in previous years include Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Paul Whelan, who won the Lieder Prize in 1993. International opera star, Bryn Terfel won the Lieder prize in 1989. The biennial competition is renowned for giving competitors valuable exposure and leverage into professional opera careers. This year's competition also forms part of Cardiff's celebrations marking 100 years as a city and 50 years as the capital of Wales.

Wendy was raised in Christchurch but developed her early singing career in Wellington studying at Victoria University. A Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist with The NBR New Zealand Opera in 2000, she was selected for the post graduate opera programme at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. Recently she has completed advanced opera studies at the Benjamin Britten Opera School at the Royal College of Music, London.

Her place as a finalist in BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition is not Wendy's first major international achievement. In 2003 while in the UK she won the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Award and the Royal Overseas League Music Competition. Before leaving New Zealand she had won the Dame Sister Mary Leo Scholarship and was named New Zealand Young Performer of the Year in 1998.

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