Marcia Bellamy

Marcia Bellamy joined Arundel Cathedral’s Music Department as Vocal Tutor to the choristers in 2022 thanks to generous funding by the Cathedral Music Trust. She is in high demand as a teacher, coach and associate artist.

She is presently Tutor and Associate Lecturer in German for the BMus Vocal Performance programme at the University of Chichester Conservatoire. Marcia is also Ensemble Coach and leads annual Masterclasses and Workshops for the Department. Since 2016 Marcia has been vocal coach to the world famous Chichester Cathedral Choristers involving annual recruitment workshops and training and support throughout the year. In addition to preparing the boys in their final years for scholarship auditions, she has coached two of them to become winners of the BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year.
In her role as a mentor, she has guided private pupils through their ABRSM qualifications and on to Choral Scholarships, National Youth Choir, and acceptance for conservatoire study. She was Associate Artist at Glyndebourne for the Young Voices Programme in 2011, and more recently she has had pupils participating in the Glyndebourne Youth Opera Productions Nothing 2016 and Agreed 2017.

Hailed in the press as ‘a natural storyteller in song, with the ability to capture attention from the first note’, Marcia Bellamy has sung throughout the U.S.A., Canada, United Kingdom and Europe. The American-born mezzo soprano earned her Master of Music (hons) from the University of Washington in Seattle. After appearances with the Portland Symphony (El Sombrero de Tres Picos) Midwest Opera (Carmen, title role, tour), and Banff Music Theatre (Lillian Holiday Happy End, tour) she was soloist for eight seasons with the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Her roles there included Hänsel Hänsel und Gretel Wellgunde Rheingold and Götterdämmerung, Zweite Dame Zauberflöte, and Suzuki Butterfly. At the Innsbrucker Landestheater she sang Dorabella Cosí fan Tutte, L’Enfant L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, and Iduna Feuerwerk.
In the UK, she has created lead roles in many new operas, including The Wife in Andrew Toovey’s The Juniper Tree for Broomhill, Cora in Orlando Gough’s The Finnish Prisoner for the Paddock and Finnish National Opera, and the triple role of Shepherd/Controller/Courtesan for Jonathan Gill’s chamber opera Moon On A Stick for OperaGenesis at ROH. Singing the role of Suzuki in the critically acclaimed Raymond Gubbay production of Madam Butterfly, she enjoys the distinction of being the only cast member to perform in all six of its legendary runs at the Royal Albert Hall and on tour. For Lewes Festival of Song she sang in a staging of Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and as Zefka in Diary of One Who Disappeared.
She is a featured soloist on Orland Gough’s recorded score for the new Shobana Jeyasingh dance theatre work, Staging Schiele, and will sing the role of Cassie in the forthcoming new people’s opera, Bloom Britannia for Barefoot Opera.
She is married to Professor Stephen Plaice. They live in Brighton with their three children.