The Soprano Anne Wilkins was born in Neath, South Wales and educated at Ysgol Penybont for the Visually Impaired at Bridgend, and later at the Royal National College for the Blind, which was then located at Rowton Castle, near Shrewsbury, where, as well as taking a secretarial course, she studied the piano and was a member of the College choir.
Later, Anne studied singing at the Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff as a part-time student in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s and also studied Theory through the medium of Braille Music in her own time via a correspondence course while also working full-time as a shorthand Typist/Admin Assistant for South Wales Police, a job she continued to do until March, 2011, when she took voluntary early retirement from her job to devote more time to her musical career. While studying via correspondence course, Anne successfully gained Grade VIII in Singing, Music Theory and Piano. And has since then taught Braille Music to GCSE level at various times. She continues to study Singing with Jeanette Massocchi, during which time she has successfully gained her FTCL and ARCM diplomas in Singing Performance.
Anne is able to communicate beautifully with an audience, with her unique tone quality and musicianship, vocal flexibility and use of varying styles. These qualities are helping to build this Soprano a very successful reputation.
Anne successfully undertakes a busy singing career, appearing at many concerts throughout the UK and has a wide and varied oratorio and recital repertoire, having been the soloist in Performances which include Handel’s “Messiah”, Mozart’s ‘Solemn Vespers’, Schubert’s Mass in ‘G’, Puccini’s ‘Messa Di Gloria’, Brahms’ ‘German Requiem’, Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’ and Bach’s “B Minor Mass”. She has worked with choirs and Choral Societies throughout the UK which include Monmouth Choral Society, Torfaen Choral Society, Bridgend Tabernacle Choir and the Derbyshire Singers.
Anne is an accomplished recitalist, and her recital performances have included recitals at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, the RNIB Headquarters in London, Moorfields Eye Hospital, London and Tabernacl Chapel, Bridgend. She has taken part in workshops with the BBC Singers which were organised as part of the RNIB’s Professional Development Programme for blind and partially-sighted musicians and on 21st March, 2009, she took part in the service for the bi-centenary of Louis Braille, at St. Martin’s-in-the-fields, London, where she was a member of the choir of visually-impaired singers who were selected from all parts of the UK for the service.
As a totally blind musician, Anne is keen to encourage the promotion and integration in the music profession of blind and partially sighted musicians, believing that they should be given every opportunity to take an active part in music , and encouraging them to achieve equality with their sighted colleagues and she recently took part in a discussion on the ‘In Touch’ programme on BBC Radio 4 to highlight this.
Anne enjoys competing in eisteddfodau and has had considerable success. Her most recent success was when she won the David Ellis Memorial blue ribband at the Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales, held in the Vale of Glamorgan in August, 2012.
Anne is now concentrating on building a successful singing career as a soloist but also still finds time to teach Piano, Singing and Braille Music.