The Veronica Dunne Competition has announced the 16 semi-finalists who will compete this evening (28 January) and tomorrow night ahead of the Grand Final concert on Thursday.

Among the semi-finalists are Irish singers Andrew Gavin and Carolyn Holt (who both recently performed in Irish National Opera’s production of The Tales of Hoffmann) and Luis Magallanes, the tenor from Venezuela who – after being spotted by Venezuelan pianist Gabriel Montero – was subsequently offered a scholarship to study at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

Also in the semi-final are US mezzo-soprano Lindsay Metzger who won second place winner at the 2018 Opera Birmingham Competition; British-Russian baritone Theodore Platt who was the 2018 winner of the Lies Askonas Competition; and Canadian countertenor Cameron Shahbazi who won second place at the 2018 Cesti Singing Competition in Innsbruck.

The 16 semi-finalists were selected from over fifty entrants who performed over the weekend.

The semi-finals take place at 5pm and 8pm today and tomorrow at the National Concert Hall. Six finalists will be then selected to perform at the Grand Final which takes place on Thursday 31 January at 7.30pm. The singers will perform with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra under Laurent Wagner.

See the full list of semi-finalists below. For tickets, visit www.nch.ie.

Eleanor Dennis, soprano, Scotland
Marlena Devoe, soprano, New Zealand
Felicitas Frische, soprano, Germany
Andrew Gavin, tenor, Ireland
Yuriy Hadzetskyy, baritone, Ukraine
Carolyn Holt, mezzo-Soprano, Ireland
Joanna Kedzior, soprano, Poland
Satriya Krisna, tenor, Indonesia
Claire Lees, soprano, UK
Luis Magallanes, tenor, Venezuela
Lindsay Metzger, mezzo-Soprano, USA
Emmett O’Hanlon, baritone, USA
Theodore Platt, baritone, UK
Cameron Shahbazi, countertenor, Canada
William Thomas, bass, UK
Shin Yeo, bass, Republic of Korea