Amanda Pyke graduated from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne with BA (Hons) in Music, and thereafter gained a Diploma in Postgraduate Performance from Birmingham Conservatoire. She has since studied at the Britten-Pears School on the Young Artist Programme and is taught by Pamela Cook, MBE.
Amanda started her operatic career in Dublin working for Opera Ireland Chorus in Yevgeny Onegin, Macbeth and The Gypsy Baron. Whilst still in Ireland, she toured with Co-Opera taking the roles of Mercedes (Carmen) and Anina (La Traviata). Recent roles include Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and Flora (cover, La Traviata) for English Touring Opera, Brambilla (cover, La Perichole) and Francisca (cover, Maria Padilla) for the Buxton Opera Festival, and Marcellina (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Mrs Herring (Albert Herring) whilst at music college. Chorus engagements include Maria Padilla, Semele and La Perichole (Buxton Opera Festival), Macbeth (Scottish Opera) and The Yeomen of the Guard (British Youth Opera).
Amanda performs regularly with choral societies around the UK, most notably singing as soloist in Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man (Milton Keynes Chorale, Milton Keynes Theatre), Bach’s B Minor Mass (Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, Snape Maltings), Elgar’s The Music Makers and John Rutter’s Feel the Spirit (Stafford & District Choral Society), Mozart’s Requiem (Birmingham Symphony Hall, Come & Sing, CBSO) and Tippett’s A Child of our Time (Uppingham School, Peterborough Cathedral). She has also sung as soloist in Vivaldi’s Gloria and Beatus Vir (appearing alongside Catherine Bott), Copland’s In the Beginning, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Paukenmesse and Nelson Mass and Durufle’s Requiem.
October 2003