Llio Evans

Welsh soprano Llio Evans, gained a first-class honours degree at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama before going on to study with Dennis O’Neill at the Wales International Academy of Voice. A winner of numerous awards including Osborne Roberts Memorial Prize, Dame Anne Evans Award, and the Russell Sheppard Intercollegiate Award. Llio is a British Youth Opera and Welsh National Youth Opera alumna, and a former Alvarez Young Artist at Garsington Opera, where she was a recipient of the Leonard Ingrams Award.

In the current season she returns to English National Opera as Celia Iolanthe, a role she previously performed in 2018.

Among her recent highlights are Modestina Il viaggio a Reims (English Touring Opera); Rose Maybud Ruddigore, Josephine HMS Pinafore (Opera Holland Park); Iris Semele (Garsington Opera); Beatrice in the UK premiere of Three Decembers (Opera della Luna/Wilton’s Music Hall); Melanto Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Zerlina Don Giovanni (Longborough Festival Opera); and performing as the soprano soloist in Janáček The Danube with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

Her operatic roles include The Little One in the UK premiere of The Golden Dragon (Music Theatre Wales); Clorinda La Cenerentola (HighTime Opera); Blonde Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Pop-Up Opera); Yum-Yum The Mikado, Gretel Hansel and Gretel (Co-Opera Co.); and Susanna The Marriage of Figaro and Pamina The Magic Flute (Opera’r Ddraig). Roles covered include Nuria Ainadamar (Scottish Opera); Despina Così fan tutte and Mimi Vert-Vert (Garsington Opera); and Ilia Idomeneo (English Touring Opera).

In concert she has performed Mendelssohn Elijah (St John’s Smith Square, Three Choirs Festival with Philharmonia Orchestra), Bach Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (Ensemble Cymru) and Arwel Hughes’ Gweddi with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Owain Arwel Hughes for BBC Radio 3. Llio is also an accomplished recitalist having performed recitals for Garsington Opera, Cardiff Music Festival, Swansea Music Festival, Llandeilo Music Festival and Ensemble Cymru. Her recordings include Barbe in Sir Arthur Sullivan’s The Beauty Stone, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (Chandos), and Y Fon Hon in 2117 / Hedd Wyn by Stephen McNeff and Gruff Rhys, with the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera (Tŷ Cerdd).