About SARAH GABRIEL

Described by Le Monde as ‘As fine an actor as she is a singer’ (Eliza Doolittle, My Fair Lady, Theatre du Chatelet), praised in The Guardian for her ‘springwater vocals’ (Air Loom, Supersonic festival), and with a performance that ‘just about undid me... magic of the highest order... absolute sorcery’ (The Guardian, following her September 2021 appearance at Crazy Coqs with her Weimar cabaret band, The Blue Hour) Sarah Gabriel is a singer, writer, and actor with a passion for creating work with artists of all disciplines.

Sarah made her USA debut as Lucy Lockit (Britten The Beggar’s Opera) conducted by Lorin Maazel, and her European debut as Eliza Doolittle in Robert Carsen’s triumphant production of My Fair Lady at Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, opposite Alex Jennings, Nicholas le Prevost and Margaret Tyzack. She has given recitals of music spanning 300 years at Wigmore Hall, Glyndebourne, Dartington and Cheltenham International Festivals and has broadcast for BBC1, BBC2, BBC Radio 3, 4 and 6, NPR (USA), RTÉ, France Musique, and Radio France.

Her collaborations with composer and multi-instrumentalist Sarah Angliss include the album and national tour of Air Loom, the soundtrack for Romola Garai’s feature film directorial debut, Amulet, and development on the forthcoming opera, Giant, to be performed in 2023 at Snape Maltings for Britten Pears Arts.

Sarah’s fascination with the turmoil of the early 20th century led to her founding The Blue Hour - her Weimar cabaret quartet - with acclaimed composer and pianist Tim Sutton, joined by Gabriella Swallow (cello) and Beth Higham-Edwards (percussion). Sarah has also performed 1930s Berlin cabaret music at Dartington Festival with pianist Joanna MacGregor, The Sage Gateshead, for Music at Oxford, for Pieter Wiegold’s Club Inégales and at Kings Place, London. 

In October 2021, she joined composer Terry Davies to sing the music for Matthew Bourne’s latest show, premiered in October 2021, The Midnight Bell; She premiered and toured Michael Daugherty’s Labyrinth of Love for Rambert Dance Company (choreographed on stage with the dancers by Marguerite Donlon). Her work with silent film includes live vocal improvisation to the 1928 movie, The Passion of Joan of Arc with pianist Joanna MacGregor and jazz ensemble. As actor, she has appeared in feature films The Walk (directed by Giovanni Maderna; cinematographer Robbie Ryan - filmed in Rome in summer 2020) and Brigitte Rouan’s Tu honoreras ta mère et ta mère, and the summer 2020 lockdown short, ‘Our Love is Here to Stay’, directed by Michael Hoffman.

Sarah’s plays A House on Middagh Street and Barlines were commissioned by tBritten-Pears Arts and premiered during the 2018 and 2019 Aldeburgh Festivals. She wrote the lyrics to Iain Farrington’s Beethoveniana for the First Night of the BBC Proms in 2020. Her solo shows include Lucrezia’s Last Breath (based on Handel’s extraordinary cantata, the first known staged performance of the piece), and Dorothy Parker takes a Trip - commissioned by Dartington Festival and appearing at Oxford Playhouse and various UK festivals; to be revived at pianist Florian Mitrea’s Hoinar Festival, Bucharest in December 2021.

As a soloist with orchestra, Sarah has performed the major oratorio repertoire, world premieres, operetta, musical theatre, and concert arias with ensembles including London Sinfonietta, Manchester Camerata, English Chamber Orchestra, at venues including the Southbank Centre, Kings Place London, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, the Lowry Salford and Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.

Operatic roles include Pamina (The Magic Flute), Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni),  Morgana (Alcina), and Mandane (Artaserse), Jerusha (The Intelligence Park by Gerald Barry with The Crash Ensemble, Dublin) Le Feu (L’enfant et les sortileges) Anne Trulove (The Rake’s Progress), The Governess (Britten The Turn of the Screw, Budapest) and Elle (La Voix Humaine) for Cheltenham International Festival.

Sarah has been a guest teacher at Royal Academy of Music, Drama Centre London, Dartington International Summer School, E15 Acting School, Aldeburgh Young Musicians and NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Instagram: @sarahgabriel___

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