Gerald Finley Bass-Baritone

This Canadian baritone has become one of the leading singers and dramatic interpreters of his generation, with award-winning performances and recordings on CD and DVD with major labels and performing at the world’s major opera and concert venues in a wide variety of repertoire. His recent awards include Best Solo Vocal Recording 2008, for his disk of Songs by Samuel Barber at the Classic FM Gramophone Awards. This follows the Editor’s Choice Award at the 2006 Classic FM Gramophone Awards. His active relationship with leading conductors including Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Sir Simon Rattle, Bernard Haitink, Alan Gilbert and Antonio Pappano has been part of a flourishing career.

In opera, Mr Finley has sung all the major baritone roles of Mozart. His Don Giovanni has been seen in New York, London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Prague, Tel Aviv, Budapest, at Glyndebourne, with further appearances to include Munich and on tour in Japan. As the Count in Le nozze di Figaro, his appearances include the Royal Opera Covent Garden (Best Opera DVD 2008), Salzburg Festival (2007, 2009), Paris, Amsterdam, and the Metropolitan Opera New York. Mr Finley’s expanding repertoire includes critical successes as Eugene Onegin, Yeletsky and Frank/Fritz in Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt at Covent Garden, and as Onegin at English National Opera. His portrayal of Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande at Covent Garden, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, won him a nomination for 'Outstanding Achievement In Opera' at the 2008 Laurence Olivier Awards. Last season, he added the role of Jago to his repertoire, in concert performances with Sir Colin Davis and the LSO (also recorded for the LSO Live label).

In contemporary opera, Mr Finley has excelled in creating leading roles, most notably J. Robert Oppenheimer in John Adam’s Doctor Atomic (New York Met, ENO London, San Francisco, Chicago and Amsterdam). For creating the role of Harry Heegan in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s The Silver Tassie at ENO, he earned a nomination at the 2000 Olivier Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Opera and won the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Singers. He took the lead role of Jaufré Rudel in Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de loin for the much-acclaimed premieres in Santa Fe, Paris and Helsinki. In addition, Mr Finley created the role of Mr. Fox in Tobias Picker’s Fantastic Mr. Fox in Los Angeles. At Glyndebourne, his roles have ranged from Figaro to Nick Shadow and Owen Wingrave. Later this season, he will take on the role of Stern in the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new opera Anna Nicole at the ROH Covent Garden.

In 2010-11, Mr Finley will return to the Metropolitan Opera as Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande, sing Don Giovanni at the Bavarian State Opera Munich and at the Salzburg Festival, and give another important role debut as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Glyndebourne, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.

His concert work is equally prestigious, and he has featured in recordings of Haydn, Handel, Brahms and Mozart. In recent seasons, he has premiered new works for Baritone and Large Ensemble written by Mark Anthony Turnage called The Torn Fields and When I Woke (these available on the LPO Live label), as well as a new piece Reflections on L’amour de loin by Saariaho. He is a frequent guest of many orchestras throughout Europe and the US. Recently released are his recordings of Mozart’s Requiem and Handel's Messiah with Nikolaus Harnoncourt for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Britten’s War Requiem with the LPO and Kurt Masur for Chandos, and LSO Live’s Beethoven 9th Symphony with Bernard Haitink. His Chandos CD of Stanford’s Songs of the Sea, with Richard Hickox and the National Orchestra of Wales, received the Editor’s Choice Award at 2006 Classic FM Gramophone Awards.

Concert highlights this season include role debuts as Zurga in Les Pêcheurs des perles at the ROH Covent Garden and the title role in Guillaume Tell at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, both conducted by Antonio Pappano, Elijah with the New York Philharmonic, Fauré’s Requiem with the LPO under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, a chamber music evening with Dawn Upshaw at the Barbican Hall, as well a return to the Wigmore Hall with Julius Drake for an all Schumann programme.

Mr Finley’s recent CD album of Dichterliebe and other Heine settings by Schumann, has achieved much international critical success. His previous releases of Barber and Ives songs, as well as Ravel, in continuing partnership with Julius Drake on the Hyperion label, have been critically acclaimed. Songs by Samuel Barber won the Best Solo Vocal Recording category of the 2008 Classic FM Gramophone Awards, and the Charles Ives Songs Romanzo di Central Park was nominated in the same category. In 2006, 2008, and 2009 he was nominated “Artist of the Year”. At the 2008 Canadian Juno Awards he received two nominations in the 'Classical Album of the Year: Vocal or Choral Performance' category, in a nod to his contribution to the CD Schubert Among Friends (Marquis Classics) along with the Songs by Samuel Barber. His disk of Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel (CBC Records) with pianist Stephen Ralls won the 1997 Juno Award.

His latest release on Hyperion Records is an album of Songs and Proverbs of William Blake by Benjamin Britten. He has also recently released a recording on the Wigmore Live label, the 25th of their series, of songs by Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky and Rorem. For Chandos, his most recent CDs include Dido and Aeneas, released in January 2009, and an album of opera arias with Ed Gardner and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which featured as ‘Editor’s Choice’ in both the Gramophone Magazine (April 2010) and the Opera Magazine (May 2010).

Film credits include Owen in Channel 4’s film of Britten’s Owen Wingrave, BBC2’s The Holocaust – a Music Memorial film, filmed at Auschwitz in 2004, and In Search of Mozart, by Seventh Art Productions. He also appears in the film Wonders are Many, a film of the making of the opera Doctor Atomic.

Gerald Finley began singing as a chorister in Ottawa, Canada, and completed his musical studies in the UK at the Royal College of Music, King’s College, Cambridge, and the National Opera Studio with the support of the Friends of Covent Garden, the Worshipful Company of Musicians, the Keith B. Poole Scholarship and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust. He was a winner of Glyndebourne’s John Christie Award and is a Visiting Professor and Fellow of the Royal College of Music.

IMG Artists UK Ltd – September 2010

Date Last Edited: 8th September 2010