Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera Peter Grimes (1945), the War Requiem (1962) and the orchestral showpiece The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).
Sir Simon Keenlyside is a British baritone who has performed in operas and concerts since the mid-1980s.
Ian Charles Bostridge CBE is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera and lieder singer.
Sir Thomas Boaz Allen is an English operatic baritone. He is widely admired in the opera world for his voice, the versatility of his repertoire, and his acting—leading many to regard him as one of the best lyric baritones of the late 20th century. From 2012 to 2022 he served as Chancellor of Durham University.
Richard Sidney Hickox was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music.
David Atherton is an English conductor and founder of the London Sinfonietta.
Simon John O'Neill is a New Zealand-born operatic tenor. In 1998, his image appeared on the New Zealand one-dollar performing arts postage stamp.
Anna Leese is a New Zealand born soprano opera singer.
Andrew Kennedy is an English tenor. He was born in Ashington, Northumberland, England, was a chorister at Durham Cathedral, attended Uppingham School, and then was a choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge. Further study at the Royal College of Music was followed by a place on the Vilar Young Artists programme at the Royal Opera House where he performed many solo principal roles.
Andrew Shulman is an English virtuoso cellist, conductor and composer. He is currently the principal cellist of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and maintains his cello studio at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles, California.
Matthew Rose is an English operatic bass.
Barry Banks is a Grammy Nominated English/American lyric tenor who, after a long association with The Metropolitan Opera and English National Opera, has achieved acclaim as one of finest interpreters of the Italian bel canto repertoire.
Anthony Michaels-Moore is an English operatic baritone and the first British winner of the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition. Michaels-Moore has since performed in many of the world's major opera houses across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. He has distinguished himself as a specialist in Verdi and Puccini roles, most renowned for his portrayals of Falstaff, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Simon Boccanegra, Iago in Otello, Germont in La traviata, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, and Scarpia in Tosca. In addition to the standard repertoire, he has sung and recorded the baritone roles of some of the less-known 19th Century Italian operas, as well as the popular English art song cycles by Stanford and Vaughan Williams.
Peter Coleman-Wright is an Australian baritone from Geelong. He began his career at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where he sang Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, winning the Touring Prize. Subsequently, he sang Sid in Albert Herring and Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Pizzaro in Fidelio.
Bryan Ernest Hare Drake was a New Zealand-born baritone who became particularly associated with the operas of Benjamin Britten.
Jacques Imbrailo is a South African classical baritone, who sings in operas and oratorios.
Tecwyn Evans is a New Zealand conductor. He holds a faculty position teaching conducting at the University of Auckland School of Music and in 2018 he was named as Director of Music of Den Jyske Opera.
Patricia Katherine Payne is an operatic mezzo-soprano and contralto from New Zealand. A member of London's Royal Opera House, she made an international career, performing leading roles of both Wagner and Italian repertory at major opera houses of the world. After decades of singing, she became a visual artist.
Winifred Honor McKellar was a New Zealand mezzo-soprano opera singer and singing teacher, and was the first full-time lecturer in singing at the University of Otago in Dunedin. Her students included Jonathan Lemalu, Patrick Power and Matt Landreth. In 1989, she was awarded a Queen's Service Medal for services to music, and in 2012, she was made a life member of the New Zealand Association of Teachers of Singing.
The opera Hōhepa, composed by Jenny McLeod, premiered at the Opera House in Wellington in March 2012, in a production by NBR New Zealand Opera. It starred Phillip Rhodes, Deborah Wai Kapohe, Jonathan Lemalu, and Rawiri Paratene. It relates the true story of the friendship between Māori chief Hōhepa Te Umuroa and English colonist Thomas Mason during the New Zealand Wars.
