Soprano Hannah Burton, 25, from New South Wales has won the 2026 IFAC Handa Australian Singing Competition (ASC).
For her prize-winning performance, Burton sang Crudele!…Non mi dir from Mozart’s Don Giovanni and O Dieu… Ah! Je ris de me voir from Gounod’s Faust. She was accompanied by The Opera Australia Orchestra led by Deputy Concert Master Katherine Lukey and conducted by Prof. Dr. Nicholas Milton AM. Along with the Marianne Mathy Scholarship, Hannah Burton won the Zeny Edwards Educational Grant, the ABC Classic Studio Recording Prize, and the MOST® Audience Prize. The Marianne Mathy Scholarship comprises 30,000 towards a program of study and/or singing activity.
Other contenders for the prestigious award, now in its 43rd year, were soprano Emily Davis, 24, from WA; 26-year-old soprano
Sky Kim from NSW; 23-year-old bass Leyland Jones from VIC, and 23-year-old mezzo-soprano Aylish Ryan from QLD. They take home a variety of awards and opportunities.
The National Adjudicator Donna Balson, was joined by fellow judges including American-Australian soprano Jennifer Black, Dr. Francis Greep, Head of the Opera Australia Young Artist Program, Dr. Anke Hoeppner-Ryan representing the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and esteemed operatic tenor and pedagogue, Glenn Winslade.
The finals concert will be broadcast around the nation on the MBS network at a date to be announced.
Image left to right: Aylish Ryan, Sky Kim, Hannah Burton, Emily Davis and Leyland Jones
