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The English bass, Richard Lloyd-Morgan, was born in Nigeria, wehere his father worked in the colonial service, and lived there from a very young age. He was sent to boarding school in England at the age of 8. It was at school that he came to love music and theatre. He took a choral scholarship at Trinity, in Cambridge, on shocking A-Level results. He studied English, and loved it. He went on to become a teacher, though over time he began to do less teaching and more part-time singing, until he eventually went full-time.
Richard Lloyd-Morgan, has performed as a concert artist in many countries. He made his major European debut in Berlin in 1987 as Nick Shadow in Igor Stravinsky's The Rake’s Progress, and returned subsequently to sing several roles, most notably Mittenhofer in Henze's Elegy For Young Lovers and William in Philip Glass' The Fall of the House of Usher. In 1989 he sang the title role in Nabucco for the Chelsea Opera Group, and was then invited to sing for several major European houses, including Glyndebourne, Opera North, Scottish Opera, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, for whom he made his debut as Yamadori in Madam Butterfly in 1992. He has also performed at festivals world-wide, including Hong Kong, Athens, Wexford, and twice at the Maggio Musicale in Florence.
Richard Lloyd-Morgan completed a highly successful concert tour of Japan in 1992, singing with the Tokyo Philharmonic, and performed recitals of Die Schöne Müllerin in the Gulf States, Nairobi and Cape Town, as well as in the UK. In 1995 he visited Argentina, Spain and Finland with Trevor Pinnock singing in a production of King Arthur and in 2000 he toured Borneo with recitals of English and American songs. At La Monnaie in Brussels he has sung a Flemish Deputy in Don Carlo with Sir Antonio Pappano, and Ceprano in Rigoletto under Vladimir Jurowski. At the Royal Opera House he sang Ping in their production of Turandot and Konrad Nachtigall in Die Meistersinger under Bernard Haitink.
For Scottish Opera Richard Lloyd-Morgan has sung the roles of Abimelech in Camille Saint-Saëns' Samson and Delilah, Baron Douphol in La Traviata. For Scottish Opera Go Round, he sang the title role in Don Pasquale and the Father in Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. His Amsterdam debut was with De Netherlandse Opera in Pierre Audi’s astonishing production of Vivier’s Kopernikus, a work that breaks many operatic moulds. In January 2002 he sang the title role in Peter Maxwell Davies' latest opera, Mr Emmet Takes a Walk performances that earned him rich praise from the composer and critics alike. In the same year he sang Germont Père in La Traviata for Holland Park Opera and returned in 2003 as Le Bailli in Werther.
Richard Lloyd-Morgan was ordained in 1998, and was appointed Chaplain of King’s College, Cambridge in September 2003. He comes to the College after 25 years as a concert and opera singer. Since arriving at King's he has taken part in many concerts - e.g. recitals of Winterreise, Die Schöne Müllerin and Schwanengesang - and in the musical life of the College generally, and, although there is no longer the time to work in the world of opera, he considers himself exceedingly fortunate to be situated in a place with such a high musical profile and for all the opportunities that this offers. In 2014, he retried from his post at King's College to pursue other interests ‘while he still can’. |
