Biography
British mezzo-soprano Nancy Holt is currently at the National Opera Studio 2024/25, having recently graduated from the Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2023. She is also an Oxford International Song Festival Young Artist for 2024/25.
Recent engagements include performing at Britten Pears Red House Recital: Britten’s Birthday in November, Shakespeare Revisited: Contemporary opera scenes with the National Opera Studio in December and she will be performing a recital with The Musicians' Company at Wigmore Hall in April 2025.
During her time at NOS, Nancy performed scenes as Idamante in Idomeneo and Yamina in La Montagne Noire by Holmès at WNO Residency and Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel and Dorabella in Così fan tutte at Scottish Opera Residency. She is looking forward to going to Opera North in June with NOS.
This season Nancy won the Simon Sandbach Award for her time at Garsington Opera as an Alvarez Young Artist 2024, covering the role of Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, playing the role of Maenad 2 and chorus in Rameau’s Platée and chorus in Verdi’s Un Giorno di Regno. She also joined IF Opera as Ensemble for their 2024 season, covering the role of Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus.
​
Other recent highlights include being an Associate Artist for Nevill Holt Opera, playing the role of Tisbe in La Cenerentola, participating in the Clonter Autumn Opera Gala 2023, and performing the role of Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana with the Cambridge Philharmonic Orchestra. Nancy has also previously appeared with British Youth Opera, winning the Basil A Turner Award for her performance of Mistress Quickly in Vaughan Williams’ Sir John in Love.
​
Whilst at Guildhall, Nancy’s roles included Mrs. Patrick De Rocher in Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Jean de Moncerf in Massenet’s Le Portrait de Manon, and Lisa in Rota’s I due timidi. Opera scenes included Cenerentola La Cenerentola, Rosina Il barbiere di Siviglia, Nancy Albert Herring and Idamante Idomeneo. She also made her Barbican Concert Hall debut in a Pre-LSO Artists Platform Recital in 2019 and won the Paul Hamburger Prize for Voice at Graham Johnson’s GSMD Song Guild.
​
Nancy is the 2024/25 recipient of The Musicians' Company Saloman Seelig Award, a Help Musicians Sybil Tutton Opera Award holder and a Countess of Munster Trust Award winner. She studies with John Evans. Nancy is also a trained dancer, having studied ballet, modern, and tap dance for over ten years.
