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The English baritone singer and viola player, Stephen Kennedy, took to music at a very early age, being surrounded by his mother’s piano pupils and choir rehearsals during the day and being lulled to sleep by her practising Frédéric Chopin in the evenings. He started piano lessons with her at 3 years old and violin at 6. At 9 he gained a place as a chorister with Westminster Cathedral Choir, recording CD's, touring France, the USA and Rome and, of course, singing at the daily services under the direction of David Hill and James O’Donnell. He was appointed Head Chorister in his final year. During his time at the Choir School he also took up the viola under the tuition of Edward Vanderspar, studying chamber music with Patricia Calnan. He received the Norfolk Scholarship for music at the Oratory School where he studied piano with Michael Crump, viola with Arthur McConnell and singing with Henry Hurford.
After a “gap” year singing with the Tewkesbury Abbey Choir, Stephen Kennedy went to the Royal Northern College of Music to study viola with Vikki Wardman, then on to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, again on viola, this time with Patricia Field. Outside college he played with the Young Musicians’ Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and was principal viola with the Britten-Pears Orchestra. On leaving college, he took singing lessons with James Morgan and sang with Brentwood Cathedral Choir and freelanced with the BBC Singers, Westminster Cathedral Choir and Apollo Voices.
In 2002, Stephen Kennedy joined the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company performing and understudying roles in productions of Iolanthe, Yeomen of the Guard and The Mikado. In October of the same year he was Truffaldino in the Britten-Pears production of Ariadne auf Naxos. In 2003, he was able to combine the singing, acting and viola as a member of the Gogmagogs, a theatrical string septet. Their show Gumbo Jumbo toured Finland, Germany, Denmark, Greece, South Korea and Singapore. He then joined the all-singing all-dancing comedy string quartet Graffiti Classics in 2007 touring worldwide with their Edinburgh Festival show as well as providing education workshops in schools all over Europe and working with severely physically and mentally handicapped children.
Solo baritone performances include George Frideric Handel's Messiah (with the English Chamber Orchestra), Carmina Burana, Verdi’s Requiem, Johannes Brahms’ Requiem and Gustav Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer and Operatic roles include Dulcamara in L’Elisir d’Amore, Donizetti's Don Pasquale, Plumket in Flotow's Martha, Don Alfonso in W.A. Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte, Isacio in G.F. Handel's Ricardo Primo, Leporello in W.A. Mozart's Don Giovanni and Bartolo in The Barber of Seville, Tonio in I Pagliacci and Bartolo in W.A. Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.
Stephen continues to freelance as a baritone, singing with Westminster Cathedral Choir, BBC Singers, Arcangelo (Director: Jonathan Cohen), Gabrieli Consort (Director: Paul McCreesh), Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Philharmonia Voices, The Eric Whitacre Singers (with whom he won a Gramophone award) and Tenebrae (Director: Nigel Short), whose Russian Treasures CD recently topped the classical charts. |
