Carolyn Margaret Sampson (born 18 May 1974) is an English soprano in opera and concert. Specialising in historically informed performance, she has sung in Masaaki Suzuki's recording project of Bach cantatas and has appeared at the English National Opera.
Born in Bedford, she studied music at the Birmingham University. During her studies, she performed as a member of the choir Ex Cathedra, winning an Arnold Goldsbrough Prize for Baroque music. She made her operatic debut singing the part of Amore in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea at the English National Opera. In 2006 she performed in Montpellier, both as Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and as Adina in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. Sampson sang the title role in the Boston Early Music Festival's production of Lully's Psyché in June 2007. Jeremy Eichler of the Boston Globe wrote that she "gave a radiant and pure-voiced performance".[1] The opera was subsequently recorded, and received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording in December 2008.[2]
Sampson has performed as a concert soloist in sacred oratorios such as Bach's St Matthew Passion with The English Concert conducted by Trevor Pinnock and Haydn's Schöpfung with the London Mozart Players. In January 2010, she appeared at the Gewandhaus in Bach's Christmas Oratorio, conducted by Riccardo Chailly. She has also sung with the NDR Radiophilharmonie, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the Freiburger Barockorchester.
Sampson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to music.
In 2005, Sampson was the first to record all twelve stanzas of Bach's aria Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn' ihn, BWV 1127, discovered in 2005. She recorded it, conducted by Masaaki Suzuki, together with Bach's popular cantata for soprano and trumpet Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, BWV 51.
In 2007, she recorded with Suzuki Bach's Mass in B minor, with Rachel Nicholls, Robin Blaze, Gerd Türk and Peter Kooy. A review noted: "The soloists are uniformly strong, and are major names in Bach performance. Carolyn Sampson leads the sopranos with a tone at once rich but still pure".
In 2010, she was the soprano soloist in a recording of Bach's Weihnachts-Oratorium with the Dresdner Kammerchor and the Gewandhausorchester, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, with Wiebke Lehmkuhl (alto), Martin Lattke (tenor) as the Evangelist, Wolfram Lattke (tenor) and Konstantin Wolff (bass).
Her recording A French Baroque Diva, music written for the soprano Marie Fel and recorded with Ex Cathedra conducted by Jeffrey Skidmore, won a Gramophone Award 2015 (Recital category). The review noted "the longer we listen to Sampson's voice, the more she seems to inhabit the aura of Fel, clearly a skilled and charismatic yet deeply affecting performer".[3]