Margaret Rizza

Margaret Rizza (born 1929) is an English composer, primarily of church music. She taught singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama from 1977 to 1994.

Life Margaret Rizza was born in 1929 into a musical family, where her mother played piano and her father was the organist for his local parish church. She attended the Royal College of Music from age 17 to study piano, at which she admits she was not particularly proficient. However, she soon switched to studying singing, and completed her training first at the National School of Opera in London and then at Siena and Rome in Italy, after which she pursued a career as an opera singer, using the name Margaret Lensky, for 25 years. During this time she sang at many of the leading venues for opera, working with conductors including Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten and Igor Stravinsky. Choral Works (Mysterium amoris) Gaudete Ensemble, Eamonn Dougan. Naxos