An award-winning opera singer from Brixton is performing at the Southbank Centre this evening. Tickets are still available.
Former city banker Nadine Mortimer-Smith did not follow the usual route into opera. Speaking on Women’s Hour earlier this week she explained how she worked her way up the ladder of stock trading straight from school for 8 years, eventually getting to the point where she was to become a floor trader.
She threw it all in however to pursue a lifelong dream to sing professionally, writing a business plan and sending it to hundreds of potential sponsors – one of whom supported her through her training. She went on to win the prize for Most Promising Voice at the inaugural Voice of Black Opera competition in 2009.
Nadine told BBC Radio 4 that the seed was planted by a teacher at her secondary school in Brixton who played her the Queen of the Night’s Aria from the Magic Flute and told her “you could sing that one day”.
For her performance at the Southbank Centre, Nadine will be giving a preview of her new album celebrating the work of three generations of American composers and three American poets – Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz, Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison and Emily Dickinson.
