British mezzo-soprano Esme Bronwen-Smith won First Prize at The 2022 Kathleen Ferrier Awards. She studied at the Royal College of Music where she was supported by the Leverhulme Scholarship and was a Drake Calleja Trust Scholar for 19/20 . She won both the 2020 Lieder Competition and the 2021 Lies Askonas Competition.

Whilst at the RCM, Esme  studied with Dinah Harris, Caroline Dowdle and her current teacher, Rosa Mannion.  

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In recital she has sung for song festivals such as Oxford Lieder and Leeds Lieder as a 2020/21 Leeds Lieder Young Artist, where she won the 2021 Leeds Lieder Young Artist/ Schubert Institute UK Song Prize.

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Esme has performed a variety of theatrical and operatic roles including Cherubino - Le Nozze di Figaro (Glyndebourne Festival cover and HGO), Nerone - Agrippina (English Touring Opera), Marchesa Melibea- Rossini's Il Viaggio a Reims (ETO), Irene - Theodora (St Pauls Sinfonia) and Smeton - Anna Bolena (cover, Longborough Opera Festival).

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Esme was recently a member of  the Gary Condès Acting studio and performed  the role of 'The Devil' in Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale, a collaboration project with Sir Thomas Allen, RCM and the Central School of Ballet.

Theatre and film has always feature heavily in her career; she has worked on a variety of projects including Frankenstein at the National Theatre (2010), Trance (2013), Trainspotting 2 (2017) and a collaboration with Underworld and Iggy Pop (Teatime Dub Encounters, 2018) in which The Guardian reviewed her voice as ‘Sublime'.

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This autumn she will return to English Touring Opera to perform the title role in their production of Rossini's La Cenerentola.