English baritone Stephen Gadd won the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Scholarship, and was a finalist in the inaugural Plácido Domingo Operalia Competition. A boy chorister at Coventry Cathedral, he was a choral scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge, and studied singing at the Royal Northern College of Music.
His operatic engagements have included Filippo Beatrice di Tenda and Alphonse La Favorite for Chelsea Opera Group; Riccardo I Puritani, Enrico Lucia di Lammermoor and Yeletsky The Queen of Spades for the Opéra de Nantes; Escamillo Carmen for Welsh National Opera; Ferryman Curlew River for Opéra de Rouen; Balstrode Peter Grimes for the Opéras de Montpellier; GellnerLa Wally, De SiriexFedora and Conte di LunaIl trovatore for Opera Holland Park; Valentin Faust for the Opéra national du Rhin, Strasbourg; Chief of Military Police Cardillac for the Opéra de Paris (a performance available on Bel Air Classiques DVD); the title role in Don Giovanni for Opéra de Metz and Opéra de Rennes; Count Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro for the Salzburg Festival tour to Japan; Sonora La Fanciulla del West (a performance available on Opus Arte Blu Ray / DVD) for the Netherlands Opera; Ping Turandot for the Royal Opera, London; Paolo Die Gezeichneten at the Salzburg Festival (a performance now available on Euro Arts DVD); Renato Un ballo in maschera for English National Opera; the title role in Macbeth for Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Glyndebourne On Tour; Giorgio Germont La traviata for Den Norske Opera; Kurwenal Tristan und Isoldefor Grange Park Opera; Melot Tristan und Isoldeat the Baden Baden Festival and for Glyndebourne Festival Opera (a performance available on Opus Arte Blu Ray / DVD) and the Royal Opera, London; and Lysiart Euryanthe for Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
Concert highlights have included the première of Richard Blackford’s Not In Our Time with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, The Creation with the Ulster Orchestra under Jan Schultsz; the Nelson Mass with the Royal Scottish National Symphony Orchestra under Walter Weller; Mahler Symphony No. 8 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons and the Philharmonia Orchestra under Lorin Maazel;Elijah with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos; Speaker Die Zauberflöte with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Daniel Harding at the Lucerne Festival and Tristan und Isolde with both the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski and the Philharmonia under Esa-Pekka Salonen.
His recordings and broadcasts include Beethoven’s Der glorreiche Augenblick with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Hilary Davan Wetton (Naxos), Richard Blackford’s Not In Our Time with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Gavin Carr (Naxos), Britten’s War Requiem with the Southern Sinfonia conducted by Simon Over (Classic fM), Mozart Coronation Mass and Vesperae solemnes de confessore and Dioclesian with The English Concert conducted by Trevor Pinnock (DGG), Prince John Ivanhoe with BBC NOW conducted by David Lloyd-Jones (Chandos), Vaughan Williams Hodie and Fantasia on Christmas Carols with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Hilary Davan Wetton (Naxos) and Lysiart Euryanthe from the Beethoven Easter Festival, Warsaw, with the Orchestra of Polish Radio conducted by Łukasz Borowicz, which was nominated for a 2012 International Classical Music Award in the Opera Category (PRCD).
He recently sang Sharpless Madama Butterfly for Grange Park Opera, Storch Intermezzo for Buxton Festival Opera, Clistene L’Olimpiade with La Serenissima and Melot Tristan und Isolde for Dallas Opera.
Current engagements include Mr Redburn Billy Budd for Glyndebourne Festival Opera (also at the Brooklyn Academy of Music), Balstrode Peter Grimes and Yeletsky The Queen of Spades for Grange Park Opera, Father Hänsel und Gretel for Glyndebourne On Tour, Tonio Pagliacci and Marcello La bohème for the Finnish National Opera, Alfio Cavalleria Rusticana and Tonio Pagliacci for Opera Holland Park, a recording of The Beauty Stone for Chandos, Beethoven Choral Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Mozart’s Litany with the Academy of Ancient Music in Gdansk, an Opera Gala at the 2013 Buxton Festival and A Summer Lunchtime Concert with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra conducted by John Wilson.
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