Brenda Hurley is regarded as one of the leading vocal coaches of her generation and for many decades she has been a passionate advocate for the development of young singers worldwide.
She is a Professor of Opera Mentoring at the Royal Academy of Music, London, a member of the vocal staff at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin and the vocal consultant for the Irish National Opera Studio. She coaches annually at the prestigious Young Singers Project in Salzburg Festival.
Brenda Hurley was the director of the International Opera Studio in Zurich Opera from 2012-2020 and Head of Opera in the Royal Academy of Music in London from 2020-2024.
In the course of a long international career as répétiteur, vocal coach and opera manager, she has worked with many of the world’s leading conductors, directors and opera singers. She has worked in many of the world’s top opera houses, festivals and young artist training programmes. She is a coach and mentor to many generations of young Irish singers.
Born in Dublin, she studied at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Trinity College Dublin, Die Staatliche Hochschule für Musik, Freiburg, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London and the National Opera Studio, London.
As an advocate of young singers she has coached regularly at the Jette Parker Programme, Covent Garden, The Jerwood Young Artist Programme in Glyndebourne Festival, The National Opera Studio, London, the Young Artists Training Programme, Tokyo, the Dutch National Opera Studio, Amsterdam, the Opera Academy of the Polish National Opera, The International Academy of Voice, Cardiff, the Hochschule der Künste Zürich and Irish National Opera Studio. She was head coach in the inaugural year of Salzburg Festival’s Young Singers Project in 2008 and continues to coach for this programme each summer.
As répétiteur and vocal coach she has held full-time positions at Scottish Opera, Teatro Massimo di Palermo in Sicily, Opera North, England, and the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, where she worked for 16 years.
She has been a guest coach at English National Opera, The Paris Opera and the Ruhr Triennale. She has had a long association with Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where she won the Janni Strasser repetiteur award. At the Salzburg Festival she collaborated with Sir Simon Rattle, Ivor Bolton, Yannick Nézet-Seguin and Robin Ticciati. At the Metropolitan Opera, New York she was a regular guest, and was Assistant Conductor to Valery Gergiev and Evelino Pidò.
In her native Ireland Brenda has coached for Wexford Festival and conducted The Magic Flute for Opera Theatre Company.
She has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra and the Freiburger Baroque Orchestra.
She has been a regular contributor at Opera Europa conferences and a regular jury member of international singing competitions, including the Grand Prix de L’Opera, Bucharest, Les Azuriales, Nice, the Zinka Milanov Vocal Competition, Rijeka, the Byulbyul International Vocalists Competition, Baku, the International Antonina Campi Vocal Competition in Lublin, Poland and the Migros Kulturprozent in Switzerland.
