Carole Irvine was born in Scotland and studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama where she won many of the major prizes including the Governors' Recital Prize, the Margaret Dick Competition, the Ramsay Calder Debussy Prize and the John Ireland Competition. She has worked extensively both on the concert platform as well as on the operatic stage. Carole began her career working with the chorus of La Scala, Milan and then spent some time with both Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Glyndebourne Touring Opera. Whilst working there she understudied the role of 'Zena' in Katya Kabanova and was soloist in The Royal Gala Performance in extracts from Mozart's Idomeneo. Since then she has sung the role of 'Hermia' in A Midsummer Night's Dream with Broomhill Opera and the 'Second Woman and Witch' in Dido and Aeneas with the London Festival Orchestra in the UK and in Delphi, Greece. She has also performed the role of 'Hansel' in Hansel and Gretel with Palace Opera at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and 'Meg Page' in the same company's production of Falstaff at Holland Park. She is an accomplished performer in contemporary music and had sung the role of 'Madame Popova' in Walton's The Bear for Jigsaw Music Theatre. She has created roles in several productions of Scottish composer Alasdair Nicolson including the 'Narrator' in The Ballad of Bulbous Sniff at the Purcell Room, 'Catalyst' in Lanark at the Edinburgh International Festival, 'Maria' and 'The Clown' in Cat Man's Tale which toured the UK and the leading role in his most recent opera, Ice at the People's Palace in London. Other roles include Frasquita in Carmen at Richmond Theatre, and the Mother with Opera Circus' new production Arcane by Paul Clarke.

On the concert platform she has performed both as a recitalist and in oratorio including Mozart's Coronation Mass and Beethoven's Mass in C with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Opera Gala performances with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Carole has broadcast on both radio and television and recorded a solo recital for BBC Radio Scotland. Most recently she was soprano soloist with the LSO in Nicolson's‘Four Tales of Enchantment’.