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The English baritone, Ed Ballard, began singing as a Chorister at the Temple Church and was a Choral Scholar in Clare College Choir and King's College Choir Cambridge, where he read History. He was a featured soloist on the 2009 BBC Television Broadcast of ‘Carols from King's'. He recently graduated from Royal Academy Opera in London, where he won the Marjorie Thomas Art Song Prize, the Elena Gerhardt Lieder Prize, the Grabowski Connell Prize and the Douglas Samuel & Birdie Matthews Award.
Ed Ballard's roles include Tarquinius in Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia and the title role in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi with Royal Academy Opera, Truffaldino in Jonathan Dove’s The Little Green Swallow and cover Chao Lin in Judith Weir’s A Night at the Chinese Opera for British Youth Opera, Guglielmo in W.A. Mozart's Così fan Tutte and Demetrius in B. Britten's A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Shadwell Opera, Death and Louis in Gustav Holst's Savitri and The Wandering Scholar for Grimeborn and Aeneas in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas for Dartington.
Ed Ballard is currently playing the title role in Massenet's Werther (1902 baritone version) for English Touring Opera in their Autumn Tour, with performances at the Britten Theatre at the Royal College of Music, Buxton Opera House, Malvern Theatres, Gala Theatre Durham, Harrogate Theatre, West Road Concert Hall in Cambridge, Snape Maltings Concert Hall and Exeter Northcott Theatre. In August, he played the title role in the world premiere of Macbeth by Luke Styles for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, with four performances in the Jerwood Studio at Glyndebourne and one performance in the Linbury Theatre at the Royal Opera House.
In concert, Ed Ballard performs regularly in venues across the UK. He has worked with orchestras and ensembles including the Britten Sinfonia, the Orchestra of St Paul’s and the Orchestra of St John and in venues including the Royal Albert Hall, the Cadogan Hall, St John’s Smith Square, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Kings Place and King’s College Chapel. Whilst at the Royal Academy of Music, he was a soloist in the Kohn Foundation Bach Cantata Series at the Royal Academy of Music and a member of the Royal Academy of Music Song Circle, with whom he made his Wigmore Hall debut in February 2014.
Ed Ballard is immensely grateful for the support, past and present, of a Maidment Scholarship and the Sybil Tutton Opera Awards administered by Help Musicians UK, an International Opera Awards Foundation Bursary, a Howard de Walden Award, Carr-Gregory Scholarship and Clumber Studio Scholarship administered by the Royal Academy of Music, The Lady Clare Fund, The Kathleen Trust, The John Wates Charitable Trust, The Josephine Baker Trust and for scholarships to Dartington International Summer School and The North Sea Vocal Academy in Denmark. |
