Carolyn Holt is from a farming background in Ireland and is a graduate of the RIAM, RAM and RCS. She was the winner of the Dermot Troy Prize for the best Irish singer in the 2019 Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition, and recently sang the role of Sister Helen Prejean in the UK staged premiere of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, to great critical acclaim. Opera Magazine wrote: “Carolyn Holt’s Sister Helen was impeccably sung, sensitively acted and never less than sincere”. She is a Garsington Alvarez Young Artist 2020, covering Kitchen Boy in Dvořák’s Rusalka. Other recent roles include Dido (Dido and Aeneas – Purcell), Mrs Jones (Street Scene - Kurt Weill), Prince Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus - Strauss), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni - Mozart).

She was a semi-finalist in the Grange Festival International Singing Competition, 2nd prize winner in the Bampton Young Singers Competition, the winner of the Irish Heritage Bursary, the Audience Prize winner at the NI Opera Festival of Voice and the Sybil Tutton Award. She has performed with Irish National Opera and the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment and performs regularly with orchestras and choral societies at home and abroad, where critics acclaim her “wonderfully dark, rich tone”.