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Born: August 8, 1998 - Stow on the Wold, Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, England, |
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Originally hailing from the Cotswolds, Laurence Kilsby, is currently an ABRSM Vocal Scholar supported by the Victoria Robey Scholarship and the Drake Calleja Trust at the Royal College of Music (since September 2017; expected graduation in July 2021), under the tutelage of the tenor Timothy Evans-Jones and the pianist Gary Matthewman. He was the recipient of the First Prize and the Norma Procter Song Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Society Bursary for Young Singers (2018). After graduating from the RCM this summer, he pursues his Masters in Opera at the Curtis Institute of Music.
A former chorister with the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum, Laurence Kilsby studied under the soprano Bronwen Mills. He won the title of BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year in 2009, subsequently making his solo debut at the Royal Albert Hall, broadcast on Sky Arts. He appears as a soloist on a number of recordings, including the critically-acclaimed recording of W.A. Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Solemn Vespers (Schola Cantorum of Oxford/Delphian), as well as the Grammy nominated album, George Frideric Handel's L'Allegro, Penseroso ed il Moderato (Gabrieli Consort/Signum Records).
Upcoming: Henrik Egerman in A Little Night Music with Opera North (Leeds Playhouse, April-July 2021). Among his recent engagements is Locke’s Venus & Adonis with Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company (Wigmore Hall), J.S. Bach's St. John Passion (BWV 245) with Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort (Cathédrale de Lausanne), Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah with Masaaki Suzuki and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Théâtre des Champs-Élysées), Peter Sellars’ staging of J.S. Bach's St. John Passion (BWV 245) with Sir Simon Rattle and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg), G.F. Handel's Messiah with Nicholas Chalmers and the Britten Sinfonia (Nevill Holt Opera), W.A. Mozart’s Requiem (St. Martin-in-the Fields), J.S. Bach's B Minor Mass (BWV 232) with the London Handel Players (St. John Smith Square), G.F. Handel's Esther for the London Handel Festival (Wigmore Hall, March-April 2018). He has appeared in public master-classes with Gregory Kunde, Sir Thomas Allen, Amanda Roocroft, Dame Sarah Connolly, Roderick Williams, Kathryn Harries MBE and James Gilchrist and has also given recitals at the Akademie der Künste (Berlin) and the Cheltenham Music Festival.
Operatic roles include: Lucano/Soldato Primo in L’incoronazione di Poppea (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, postponed to 2022), Apollo/Pastore/Spirito in L’Orfeo (Nederlandse Reisopera, December 2019-February 2020), Phoebus in The Fairy Queen (Waterperry Opera Festival, July 2019), Lysander (cover) in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Nevill Holt Opera, May-July 2019), Lucano in ’incoronazione di Poppea (Longborough Festival Opera, June-August 2018), Post Office Clerk in Kommilitonen! (Welsh National Youth Opera). He currently lives in London, England. |
