Soprano Louise Alder became one of the most exciting and critically acclaimed young singers on the operatic scene in the mid-2010s, making high-profile appearances at festivals and at the Frankfurt Opera. In 2017, she won the Audience Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. Alder was born on November 25, 1986, in London. She grew up in a musical family; her mother, whom she has described as a major influence, played in the Glyndebourne Festival Orchestra. Alder attended the University of Edinburgh, studying music and graduating with First Class Honors in 2010. Her teacher there was Patricia MacMahon. Enrolling in the Britten-Pears Young Artist program, she began to rack up important prizes: a top prize at the 2012 Maggie Teyte French Song Competition, a second prize in the 2012 Kathleen Ferrier Competition, and many Royal College of Music honors, including the 2013 Tagore Gold Medal awarded every year to two graduating students for outstanding representation of the RCM. Alder joined the ensemble at the Frankfurt Opera in 2014 and, in the 2017-2018 season, took three important roles there: Despina in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Sophie in Massenet's Werther, and Clorinda in Rossini's La Cenerentola. After winning the first British Young Soloists' Competition at London's Wigmore Hall in 2015, she found herself fielding offers from major British companies. Alder has appeared as Sophie in Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier at the Welsh National Opera and with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni with Glyndebourne on Tour; Eurydice in Rossi's Orpheus at the Royal Opera; as Lucia in Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, and in many other roles, both in England and abroad. Among her repertory roles was that of Juliette Vermont in Lehár's Der Graf von Luxemburg; she appeared on a recording of that operetta in 2017, and her Orchid Classics debut solo recital, a collection of Strauss songs, was well-timed to take advantage of her success in Cardiff. In 2019, she appeared in the lead role in Francesco Cavalli's La calisto at the Teatro Real in Madrid and was slated to make debuts at the Canadian Opera Company, English National Opera, and Royal Opera House. Alder began to receive offers from various British labels, and in 2020, she released the album Lines Written During a Sleepless Night: The Russian Connection on Chandos. The album's title referred not only to its musical contents but also to Alder's ancestry. The year 2020 also saw her perform Richard Strauss' Sechs Lieder, Op. 68, on a recording by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Alder released the French song recital Chère Nuit on Chandos in 2021. In 2024, she made her first foray into early music, singing the lead role on an Alpha recording of Handel's oratorio Theodora, HWV 60, with the ensemble Arcangelo and its conductor, Jonathan Cohen. ~ James Manheim, Rovi