Toby Spence
International Visiting Professor
An honours graduate and choral scholar from New College, Oxford, Toby Spence studied at the Opera School of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He was the winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society 2011 Singer of the Year award.
In concert Toby has sung with some of the most renowned orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestr, San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He has appeared as a guest soloist at the Easter Festival in Salzburg and the Edinburgh International Festival. He has worked with an impressive array of conductors such as Christoph von Dohnanyi, Sir Simon Rattle, Michael Tilson Thomas, Sir Antonio Pappano, Valery Gergiev, Colin Davis, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Gustavo Dudamel, Edward Gardner, Roger Norrington and Charles Mackerras.
A prolific recitalist, Toby has given numerous solo recitals for BBC Radio 3 and at London’s Wigmore Hall and has appeared at LSO St Luke’s, Opera de Lille, at Northern Ireland Opera’s Festival of Voice, Janacek’s Brno International Music Festival and Aldeburgh Festival. He has made numerous recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, BMG, Philips, Collins, Linn Records, Hyperion and EMI.
Recent appearances included The Seasons with the Philharmonie de Paris; Bruckner’s F minor Mass with the Sinfonieorchester Basel; Das Lied von der Erde with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Liszt’s Faust Symphony with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg; The Creation with the Houston Symphony Orchestra; Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and Haydn’s Nelson Mass with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in Mumbai; War Requiem at the Slovak Philharmonic Concert Hall and with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; Missa Solemnis with the London Symphony Orchestra; Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with Houston Symphony Orchestra; Britten’s War Requiem with Toronto Symphony Orchestra; Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Shanghai Symphony cond. Long Yu for Deutsche Grammophon’s 120th anniversary; Jonathan Dove’s There Was A Child with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Beethoven 9 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Recent opera engagements have included Ghandi Satyagraha, Paris La Belle Hélène, Lensky Eugene Onegin and the title role in Charles Gounoud’s Faustat the English National Opera; Captain Vere Billy Budd for Teatro Real, Opera di Roma and Royal Opera House Covent Garden; Anatol Vanessa for Frankfurt Opera;Don Ottavio at the Liceu Barcelona; Eisenstein Die Fledermaus and Antonio The Tempest for the Metropolitan Opera; Don Ottavio and Tito for the Vienna State Opera; Essex Gloriana and Tamino Die Zauberflöte for the Royal Opera House, where his previous roles have also included Ferdinand The Tempest, David Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Count Almaviva Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Ramiro La Cenerentola and Tom Rakewell The Rake’s Progress; Madwoman Curlew River for the Edinburgh Festival; Tito, Tamino and Henry Morosus Die Schweigsame Frau for the Bavarian State Opera; Tom Rakewell and David Die Meistersinger at Opéra de Paris; Bénédict Beatrice et Bénédict with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra; Tito in Clemenza di Tito in Berlin; Aschenbach Death in Venice, Herod Salome and Peter Grimes.
Highlights of the 19/20 season included Pylades Iphigénie with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; the title role of Lazarus at the Kammerakademie Potsdam; Florestan in Fidelio at the Stavanger Concert Hall, Mahler’s Das Klagendes Lied and Mendelssohn’s Die Erste Walpurgisnacht with the Houston Symphony Orchestra; Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at Atlanta Symphony Hall;The Dream of Gerontius at the Slovak Philharmonic Concert Hall; Missa Solemnis at the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic and Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings at the Prague Rudolfinum and the Auditorium de l’Orchestre National de Lyon.
Plans for the 20/21 season include Florestan Fidelio for Garsington Opera and Greek National Opera, Aschenbach Death in Venice for Opera du Rhin and his role debut as Parsifal for Opera North and at the Edinburgh Festival. On the concert platform, Toby sings Das Lied von der Erde with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, cond. Ivan Fischer, Janáček’s The Diary of One who Disappeared at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the St Matthew Passion with the Bach Choir, and Beethoven 9 with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall.
