Welsh Soprano, Jessica Cale, is the 2020 First Prize winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Awards and Joint Audience prize winner at the 2020 London Handel Festival International Singing Competition. This summer, Jessica covered the role of Helena in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Glyndebourne Festival. In 2022, Jessica made her European and house debut at Teatro La Fenice playing 2nd Niece in Britten’s Peter Grimes in addition to making her role and festival debut as Susanna in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro for Waterperry Opera Festival.

Jessica is a graduate of the Royal College of Music International Opera Studio. Whilst at the RCM, Jessica was the Robert Lancaster Scholar and is hugely grateful for the additional support of an Help Musicians UK Sybil Tutton Award, the Josephine Baker Trust and the Countess of Munster Trust. Jessica’s operatic roles whilst at the RCM include the title role of Rodelinda (Handel); Flaminia (Haydn’s Il mondo della luna), Susan (Berkeley’s A Dinner Engagement) and Second Bridesmaid (Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro). Jessica has also performed Despina (Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte) and Serpetta (Mozart’s The Garden of Disguises) for Ryedale Festival Opera. Jessica has participated in Masterclasses at the RCM with Dame Ann Murray, Gerald Finley, Edith Wiens and Roger Vignoles.

On the concert platform, Jessica has performed under the batons of Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Paul McCreesh, Harry Christophers, Jonathan Cohen, Christian Curnyn, Ian Page and Brian Kay. Notable concert highlights include: Handel’s Neun Deutsche Arien with the Academy of Ancient Music; Handel’s Scipione at the London Handel Festival with the Early Opera Company; Mendelssohn’s Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Britten’s Les Illuminations in Vilnius, Lithuania for the British Ambassador; Bach with the Dunedin Consort at Wigmore Hall; Jessica’s debut at Cadogan Hall with The Mozartists; Porpora and Handel at Bilbao’s Musika Música Festival with Arcangelo. Jessica has performed as soprano soloist for recordings with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment of Bach’s St John Passion alongside Gerald Finley and Mark Padmore, and ‘Telling Tales with Telemann’ alongside Tabea Debus.