Hailed as a "rare talent" with a "beautifully refined voice" (The Oxford Review), Jennifer Cearns is much in demand as a soprano both in the UK and abroad. Alongside work with many of the world's finest consorts, she can regularly be heard in concert and oratorio work, in radio and television broadcasts, and in recitals of lieder and song across Europe and the USA. 

 

Her singing career began at the age of 15 upon gaining a place at the Royal Northern College of Music Junior School to study Voice and Piano. Whilst there, she was a principal soloist in the RNCM Junior Opera, with roles including Carmen (Bizet), Dido (Purcell), Sheherezade (Ravel), and Filipyevna (Tchaikovsky). 

 

Five years followed on a Choral Scholarship at Merton College, Oxford, with whom she went on five international tours, recorded five CDs, appeared as a soloist on a live BBC R3 broadcast, and performed in numerous world premieres, including Gabriel Jackson’s ‘Passion’ with the choir of Trinity Church, Wall St in New York. She also appeared on numerous BBC television programmes, including David Starkey's recent series 'Music and Monarchy'.

Recent performances include Handel’s Messiah in Spain (Instruments of Time and Truth, dir. Edward Higginbottom), Bach’s St John Passion at St John's Smith Square (Polyphony/ OAE, dir. Stephen Layton), Mozart's Great Mass in C Minor at St-Martin-in-the-Fields (Academy of St Martin's, dir. Andrew Earis), Monteverdi's Vespers in Ripon Cathedral, Bach's Mass in B Minor with Oxford Camerata, and Beethoven's Mass in C at St Bride's Church (EC4, dir. Tim Crosley). In 2017 she sang in a production of Vivaldi’s opera Teuzzone in Venice with Grammy-award winning ensemble La Sereníssima (dir. Adrian Chandler). 

 

Other recent highlights include tours of Italy, Norway and Switzerland with Tenebrae, Polyphony, and the London Philharmonia respectively, and a tour of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater in the U.S.A. She recently featured as a soloist on a BBC R4 broadcast by St Martin's Voices (St Martin-in-the-Fields). In November 2019 she performed in a production of Handel's opera Semele as part of the Shanghai International Arts Festival with Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. 

 

She also works with Seraphic Fire (U.S.A), St Martin's Voices, Ex Cathedra, Musica Ficta (Denmark), Chappelle du Roi, Oxford Consort of Voices,  Philharmonia Voices, and EXAUDI, amongst others, and sings regularly with St Paul's Cathedral Consort.