Simone Ibbett-Brown

Simone is a mezzo-soprano and opera-maker, passionate about work that reflects and affects the world we live in. She trained at the University of York and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she was recently appointed a Junior Fellow. Simone is honoured to be a BBC Radio 3 Next Generation Voice and a Women of the Future Awards winner (Arts and Culture).

Forthcoming engagements include premiering Martinez’s Four Afro-Cuban Poems (Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Lontano); Amneris, Aida (Opera Festival Scotland); and the title role in a new operetta (West Green House Opera). Before training in classical voice, she was a backing vocalist for artists including Mercury Award-winner Benjamin Clementine.

Simone has been commissioned to write or direct for the Edinburgh International Festival, English National Opera, Royal Opera House, Soho Theatre, and more. She is joint artistic director of Hera, celebrating and sharing music and stories you haven’t heard before, by minoritised artists, right across the

Wild, witty, messy and painfully perceptive

The Stage

Fierce, fearless and cerebral

The Guardian

Vivacious, energetic... full to the brim with humanity

Broadway World (all on Shuck ’n’ Jive)

…, Ibbett-Brown and … each excel themselves in flooding the theatre space with their incredible vocal talents

British Theatre Guide on Dead Equal

"... Ibbett-Brown and Auchterlonie too had commanding stage presence in overlong wide-knit dresses and vivid hairpieces."

- TEMPO, on Alistair White's RUNE

Career
highlights

Mami Wata (Royal Opera House, Pegasus Opera);
Grace, Opera Mums (BBC Four);
Passepartout, Around the World in 80 Days (West Green House Opera);
Jo, Dead Equal (Summerhall, Lustrum Award);
A Woman, Porgy and Bess (English National Opera, Dutch National Opera, Olivier and Sky Arts Award);
Cover Annie, Porgy and Bess (Theater an der Wien);
Esther, Mamzer (Guildhall School workshop at the Royal Opera House);