Baritone

Stephen Roberts is one of Britain’s foremost concert and oratorio performers with an outstanding repertory including all the major sacred baritone roles by J S Bach, Mozart, Handel, Elgar and Britten, as well as the choral symphonies of Mahler and Beethoven. He is a champion of the English choral tradition and has collaborated in particular with Sir David Willcocks and Richard Hickox in performances of the works of Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Britten, and for many years sang Bach’s St Matthew Passion each Easter with the Bach Choir.

In addition, Stephen Roberts has a large discography to his credit, including works like Carmina Burana with Chailly and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Nielson’s Symphony no. 3 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Bryden Thomson, Elgar’s Caractacus and The Apostles with Richard Hickox as well as Vaughan William’s Sea Symphony , and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the late Sir John Pritchard. His latest releases include the premier recording of Dyson’s Canterbury Pilgrims for Chandos with Richard Hickox, Stravinsky songs for Virgin Records and Schoenberg’s orchestration of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde for GMN under David Atherton, Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music with Sir Roger Norrington for EMI, and two CD’s of English Song (including Vaughan-Williams, Butterworth, Finzi and Parry) for GMN. Stephen is a member of the Global Music Network’s “family of artists” who deliver, principally via the Internet, unique programmes of new or previously unavailable recordings, providing the consumer with an interactive 21st Century “radio station”.

He has also worked with many groups specialising in authentic performance techniques under such conductors as Sir Roger Norrington and John Elliot Gardiner, as well as many recordings of plainsong and the very early vocal repertory of various countries. With the group Pro Cantione Antiqua he has recently toured India, Japan and Hong Kong, and has also visited several countries in Central America with the vocal group The Amaryllis Consort, of which he is a founder member.

Concerts abroad have included a tour of Spain with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Libor Pesek in Mahler’s Symphony no. 8, Zemlinski’s Lyric Symphony in Rome with Chailly, and Mahler’s Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Paris with Simon Rattle. He also took part in Penderecki’s St Luke Passion in Palermo and Vienna with the composer conducting, having already recorded the work for Decca after a televised BBC “Prom” performance. He has made several visits to Hong Kong, including performances of Mahler, Faure, Berlioz and Walton with David Atherton, Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 in Poland with Semkov and in Lisbon with the Orquestra Sinfonica Portuguesa, Handel’s Messiah in Madrid, Bach’s Mass in B min in Tokyo with Rene Jacobs conducting, as well as on tour in France, and Stravinsky’s Pribaoutki with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Society.

In the United Kingdom, Stephen has sung Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Nikolas Harnoncourt, Stravinsky with Simon Rattle and the CBSO, Carmina Burana with the RPO and the CBSO, Elgar’s The Kingdom and The Apostles with the RLPO and Vernon Handly, and Mendelssohn’s St Paul with the RSNO. He also returned to Scotland for performances of Carmina Burana with the RSNO and Jervi, as well as concerts with the Halle, the RLPO and the ECO, and took part in a televised Christmas Concert from St Paul’s Cathedral. More recent engagements have included recitals and concerts in Israel and Mexico, concert performances of Tippett’s King Priam and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde under Atherton and Strauss’s Elecktra under Weller, Stravinsky’s Renard with the Birmingham Contemporary Ballet and Rattle, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with Slatkin and the Philharmonia Orchestra in Istanbul as well as concerts with the ECO, The Academy of St Martin’s, the RLPO and the RSNO.