“A rich, warm voice, with a beautiful resonant quality"– Jennifer Miller (Director, Longborough Festival Opera)
Mezzo Soprano, Heidi Innes studied singing under Francoise Dume at the Paris conservatoire Paul Dukas from 2004-2006 and was then awarded a Post Graduate Diploma in Opera in 2008 from Trinity College of Music where she studied under the direction of Teresa Cahill. She sang the role of Mere Marie in Poulenc’s Les Carmelites at Blackheath Concert Halls and as Mercedes in Bizet’s Carmen with Mean Time Opera. A versatile performer Heidi has performed in many unusual places including an Oxford Paunt on the river Isis.
Operatic engagements have included Opera Holland Park Chorus 2012 (Lucia de Lamermoor, Cosi Fan Tutte) as well as the role of The Mother in Hansel and Gretel (2011) with Opera at Home (The Reform Club and All Saints' Church in Fulham) Orestes (La Belle Helene) for Suffolk Opera production at the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds (2010) and Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Magic Flute in London (2009).
Early in 2013, she revived her love of Baroque Opera, performing the role of Summer in Purcell's King Arthur at the Canongait church on The Royal Mile with Edinburgh Studio Opera. Also that year, 2013 Heidi was Artistic Director of a series of charity concerts “Arias at Colstoun House” in which she performed (www.colstounopera.com).
In June 2014 she performed in a touring production of Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring, in the role of Mrs Herring for St. Andrew’s Opera with conductor Michael Downes and Tania Holland-Williams at The Byre theatre.
She had the privilege of studying with the pianist Malcolm Martineau at The Oxonfoord International Summer School this year, singing the Schubert setting of the Mignon Song Cycle.
Paris is known as “The City of lights”. It’s where my singing story begins – the light in my head switched on and inspired by the beauty of the city, and the wonderful concerts I’d been attending I decided to take my singing seriously. A frustrated Opera Diva. I lived there for 10 years. Not as an Au pair, but as a music student in Bohemian Montmartre – the artistic headquarters of Paris. Every morning on my way to work I’d walk the cobbled streets and descend 200 steps where centuries of great artists had trod before me – Toulouse Lautrec, Picasso, Piaf. My lodgings were just across the street from the famous cabaret, “Le Lapin a Gilles”. Once safely installed with a glass of wine and a plate of spaghetti pesto, I’d count up my day’s takings into neat little stacks which the cheerful Italian restaurant owner was only too happy to exchange at the end of the afternoon for billets (around 100 euros). After several weeks of this I reasoned that if the discerning residents of the 4th arrondissement enjoyed my singing then it was time to take it more seriously. I went for an audition at the Conservatoire Paul Dukas where my teacher promptly put an end to my busking career. Singers are like cats, they drink a lot of water and stretch a lot!