Rising star Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha was the winner of the Song Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition 2021 and is an alumna of the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
This 2022–23 season, Masabane Cecilia will sing Mathilde in Guilliame Tell and the title role in Iphigénie en Tauride at Theater Bern. She will also return to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Liù in Turandot conducted by Antonio Pappano. On the concert platform, Rangwanasha performs Mendelssohn’s Lobegesang at Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at Theater Bern, makes her U.S. debut with the Washington Symphony Orchestra for Barber’s Knoxville—Summer of 1915, and gives solo recitals at Wigmore Hall and in Bordeaux.
Previous performances at Theater Bern have included Élisabeth de Valois in Don Carlos and Elettra in Idomeneo. Recent concert highlights include Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 conducted by Adam Fischer with the Orchestra Age of Enlightenment, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony conducted by Sir Mark Elder with The Hallé Orchestra, Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder under the direction of Paul Daniel at Opéra National de Bordeaux, and performing as part of Classic FM Live at the Royal Albert Hall.
Future seasons will see a series of exciting house and role debuts, including Staatsoper Hamburg, Semperoper Dresden and returns to the Royal Opera House and on the concert platform with the London Symphony.
Rangwanasha completed her PGDip at the University of Cape Town, where she studied with Virginia Davids, and then went on to study Vocal Performance at Tshwane University of Technology. She was the winner of the Audience Prize and two special prizes in the 2019 Hans Gabor Belvedere Competition.
Rangwanasha is a current BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist.