Ann Murray

Who is Ann Murray?

Ann Murray, DBE, is an Irish mezzo-soprano. She studied with Frederic Cox at the Royal Manchester College of Music and made her stage debut as Alcestis in Christoph Willibald Gluck's Alceste in 1974. She has since sung at all major opera houses and is particularly noted for her performances in works by George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss.

Murray performs mainly at Covent Garden, the English National Opera and the Bavarian State Opera. Murray was the featured singer in volume three of the Hyperion Schubert Edition, Hyperion Records' complete Franz Schubert lieder project, in 1988, led by pianist Graham Johnson.

In 2002, she was made an Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to music. Not being a citizen of a Commonwealth realm, the award is honorary rather than substantive. This means she can use the postnominal "DBE", but can't use call herself Dame Ann Murray.

She maintains her links with Ireland and is a patron of the Young Associate Artists Programme of Dublin's Opera Theatre Company. In September 2010, she was appointed professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music in London.