Eva Maria Kavanagh

22-year-old Irish soprano Eva Maria Kavanagh is quickly emerging as one of Ireland’s most exciting young operatic talents. In 2025, Eva was the first recipient of the Bríd Phelan Emerging Talent Bursary from the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival. She is the winner of the Irene Sandford Award (2024) at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, a multiple first-prize winner at Feis Ceoil (including the Plunket Greene Cup, Thomas Moore Cup, Merchant Cup, and the Young Cup),a finalist in the Birr Festival of Music Trench Award (2024), a recipient of the Canto al Serchio Bursary and the John McCormack Bursary.

In the 2025–2026 season, she was also chosen to represent RIAM in a prestigious collaboration with the Juilliard School, travelling to New York to perform under the direction of renowned pianist Iain Burnside. In 2025, Eva was selected to represent the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Leipzig, Germany, for a week of masterclasses under Professor Schubert.

Operatic highlights include the title role in El Gato con Botas by Xavier Montsalvatge with RIAM Opera (2026), lead role as Rosina in La vera Costanza by Joseph Haydn (2025), and extracts as Fiordiligi in scenes from Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (2025). She will perform extracts as Norma from the opera Norma by Vincenzo Bellini in RIAM’s 2026 ‘Opera Scenes Showcase’.

Eva has appeared as a soloist with the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival and has performed at the National Concert Hall, as well as at Farmleigh House, Killruddery House, Mount Juliet, and at the Austrian and German Embassies in Dublin. Her recital work has taken her to Italy and Germany, and she has been featured on RTÉ Lyric FM.

Eva is delighted to have been selected as a Factory Artist for Wexford Festival Opera and looks forward to joining the programme.