Winner of the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, the British mezzo-soprano Katie Bray has become known for her magnetic stage presence and gleaming, expressive tone. In the opera house her roles have included Hänsel (Hänsel und Gretel), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Varvara (Kát’a Kabanová), Nancy (Albert Herring), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Juno (Semele), Zenobia (Radamisto), Minerva (Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria), Zaida (Il turco in Italia), Isolier (Le Comte Ory), and the title role in Vivaldi’s Griselda for companies such as English National Opera, Irish National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Garsington Opera, Grange Park Opera, and Opera Holland Park. Her interest in the music of Kurt Weill and cabaret, an interest documented by the present album, has led to staged productions of this music, including Effigies of Wickedness, based on songs banned by the Nazis, at the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill. Noted for her interpretations of baroque repertoire, she has received regular invitations from early music groups including the Academy of Ancient Music, Irish Baroque Orchestra, The English Concert, Barokksolistene, Monteverdi Choir, Wroclaw Baroque Ensemble, La Nuova Musica, and Spira mirabilis, performing under conductors such as Harry Bicket, Laurence Cummings, Bjarte Eike, Peter Whelan, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Katie Bray is also a keen recitalist who has performed songs by Schumann and Schubert with Sholto Kynoch at the Oxford International Song Festival, works by Britten, Berlioz, and Barber with Michael Pandya at the Glenarm Festival of Voice, music by Pauline Viadot in Dorset, songs by Kurt Weill in Deal, and a semi-staged presentation of Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch with Christopher Glynn and Roderick Williams at Milton Court and the Ryedale Festival.