Soprano Elena Xanthoudakis has become the first Australian to win a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award.

The 32-year-old Greek-Australian opera star receives £20,000 from the trust, as well as ongoing support to ensure that the money is used to help develop her long-term career. Also receiving the award this year are Korean violinist Hyeyoon Park, Dutch bassoonist Bram van Sambeek, and British soprano Elizabeth Watts.

Elena Xanthoudakis holds a Bachelor of Music with Honours and Graduate Diploma of Opera from the Victorian College of the Arts and a Master of Music from the University of Melbourne. In 2005, she received her MMus with distinction from the Guildhall School of Music, London.

Xanthoudakis also studied as part of a young artist program at the Maggio Musicale, Florence. In 2011, she will sing at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, make her Wigmore Hall debut, and give gala concerts in Poland and Australia. Recently, she starred in Pinchgut Opera’s production of L’anima del filosofo and she will soon appear on cinema screens nationwide in Carmen in 3D.

Awarded annually, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust awards are given to artists or ensembles that the London-based trust’s artistic committee perceive as being performers of...