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Toby Spence

About this Artist

An honors graduate and choral scholar from New College, Oxford, TOBY SPENCE studied at the Opera School of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He was the winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society 2011 Singer of the Year award. 

In concert, Toby has sung with the Cleveland Orchestra under von Dohnanyi, Berliner Philharmoniker and the Wiener Philharmoniker under Rattle; San Francisco Symphony under Tilson Thomas; the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Pappano; Rotterdam Philharmonic under Gergiev; LSO under Davis; London Philharmonic Orchestra under Nézet-Séguin; Los Angeles Philharmonic under Dudamel; Bayerischer Rundfunk under Gardiner, and at the Osterfestspiele Salzburg and Edinburgh International Festival under Norrington and Mackerras. Recent appearances include The Seasons with the Philharmonie de Paris; Bruckner’s F-minor Mass with the Sinfonieorchester Basel; The Creation with the Houston Symphony Orchestra; Messiah, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, and Haydn’s Nelson Mass with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in Mumbai, and Missa Solemnis with the LSO under Tilson Thomas. 

Recent opera engagements include Ghandi (Satyagraha) at English National Opera; Captain Vere (Billy Budd) for Teatro Real and Opera di Roma; Anatol (Vanessa) for Frankfurt Opera; Don Ottavio at the Liceu Barcelona; Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus) and Antonio (The Tempest) for the Metropolitan Opera; Don Ottavio and Tito for the Wiener Staatsoper; Essex (Gloriana) and Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) for the Royal Opera House, where his previous roles have also included Ferdinand (The Tempest), David (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Count Almaviva (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Ramiro, and Tom Rakewell; Tamino, Candide, Paris (La Belle Hélène), Lensky, and Faust for English National Opera; Madwoman (Curlew River) for the Edinburgh Festival; Tito, Tamino, and Henry Morosus (Die Schweigsame Frau) for the Bayerische Staatsoper; and Tom Rakewell and David (Die Meistersinger) at Opéra de Paris. 

Engagements in the 2018/19 season include the Dvořák Stabat Mater with Houston Symphony Orchestra; Britten’s War Requiem with Toronto Symphony Orchestra; Szymanowski’s Third Symphony for the Gulbenkian Foundation, and Orff’s Carmina Burana in Shanghai and Beijing with Long Yu and Aida Garifullina for Deutsche Grammophon’s 120th anniversary. Opera engagements include Captain Vere for the Royal Opera House and a staged version of Britten’s Les Illuminations for Teatro Real Madrid.