A budding King’s Park soprano has the recipe for success – after cooking up an award-winning performance in her kitchen.
Rosie Lavery is a student at the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow, with dreams of becoming an opera singer.
And her career hopes received a huge boost when she was announced as the winner of this year’s Musician’s Company Saloman Seelig Award, which is open to all conservatoires in the UK and comes with a £10,000 prize.
It also means the talented 22-year-old has earned a spot in the Yeomen young artists programme, meaning she will be given mentoring and support for the next five years as her career develops.
A delighted Rosie told the Reformer : “I was elated to find out I’d won, I couldn’t believe it. I was put forward for it by the Royal Conservatoire, but it wasn’t something I’d considered until I was told about it.
“I’d been applying for grants for my Masters and this is an amazing help.
“It’s a really prestigious prize, so the award itself is a real honour to get. It was such a shock, it took a few hours for it to sink in what it means.”
Rosie’s entry was one of the more unusual performances in her career.
She explained: “Because of Covid-19, the auditions and performances couldn’t be done in person, they had to be done from home. So I had my audition while singing in my kitchen!”
Rosie will be a familiar face to parishioners at a Cambuslang church.
For the past five years she has been the cantor at St Bride’s, leading parishioners in singing.
She is the second musical member of the church to win an honour, after organist Aaron Hawthrone was crowned the Young Organist of the Year in 2019, and the support from the local community has been a big help to her.
She added: “It’s a lovely church and Father Morton is a great man. Aaron and I started on the same day and got on well right away. The congregation are so nice, so there has been a lot of support and help the past few years.
“My family and friends have been really supportive and my girlfriend, Taylor has been brilliant. Oh, and I’ve got a great singing teacher in Clare Shearer!”
Rosie, who lists opera singers Jessye Norman and Karen Cargill as her biggest influences, had to cancel a planned concert earlier this year due to the coronavirus, but is hoping to reschedule her performances
She said: “So many things have had to be rescheduled so hopefully I’ll be able to perform again later in the year.”
