Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Soprano

Rising star Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha won the Song Prize at the 2021 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition and was recently awarded the 2024 Herbert von Karajan Prize at the Salzburg Easter Festival.

In the 2025–26 season, Masabane made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Liù in Puccini’s Turandot, a role she also sang at the Royal Ballet & Opera. Later, she returned to the RBO to make her role debut as Contessa Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and performed the role in concert with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. On the concert platform, Masabane made her debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, and sang Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder with both the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with the National Symphony Orchestra Ireland.

In previous seasons, Masabane made notable debuts with Washington National Opera and Hamburg State Opera as Liù, a role she also performed with the RBO on tour in Japan. She made her debuts with the LSO and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Mendelssohn’s Elijah, performed Verdi’s Requiem with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and returned to the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and The Hallé for Rossini’s Stabat Mater.

Masabane received critical acclaim for her performances at Bern Theatre as Mathilde in Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, and in the title role in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride. She made her U.S. debut with Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra in Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, a work Masabane reprised with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop. Additional performances include Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 with Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Mahler’s Das klagende Lied at Bern Theatre, and her Edinburgh Festival debut performing Tippett’s A Child of Our Time with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Earlier highlights include Élisabeth de Valois in Verdi’s Don Carlos and Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo at Bern Theatre, Verdi’s Requiem with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the First Night of the Proms, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder with Opéra National de Bordeaux, and an appearance at Classic FM Live at the Royal Albert Hall.

Masabane is a former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist.