Michael Chance CBE

He is in equal demand as an opera, concert and recording artist. His vocal training with Rupert Bruce Lockhart followed an English degree at King's College, Cambridge where he was also a choral scholar. His first operatic appearance was in the Buxton Festival in Ronald Eyre's staging of Cavilli's Giasone which was followed by appearances in Lyon, Cologne, and three seasons with Kent opera. Subsequently, he has performed in the Sydney Opera House, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, La Scala Milan, Florence, New York, Lisbon, Oviedo, Leipzig, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and with Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, and English National Opera. His roles include the title roles of Orfeo (Gluck), Giasone, Giustino, Rinaldo and Ascanio in Alba, Solomon, Ottone (L’incoronazione di Poppea), Athamas (Semele), Andronico (Tamerlano), Oberon (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Tolomeo (Giulio Cesare) and Apollo (Death in Venice). He has had roles written specially for him by Sir Harrison Birtwistle (Orpheus, The Second Mrs Kong) and Judith Weir (A Military Governor, A night at the Chinese Opera). Recent festival appearances include Edinburgh, Aix-en-Provence, BBC Proms in London, Salzburg and Bertarido in a new production of Handel’s Rodelinda for the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich.

His appearances in oratorio and recital have taken him to concert halls all over the world including Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Neue Gewandhaus and Berlin's Philharmonie. He has given recitals in Frankfurt, Vienna, Amsterdam, Israel, New York and London's Wigmore Hall with a variety of programmes, ranging from Elizabethan lute songs to new works commissioned for him. He sings regularly with the viol consort Fretwork and has toured with them to Japan and the United States.

Michael’s list of recordings is numerous and widespread. He received a Grammy award for his participation in Handel's Semele for Deutsche Grammophon with John Nelson and Kathleen Battle. He has recorded frequently with John Eliot Gardiner, including the Bach Passions and Cantatas, B Minor Mass, Monterverdi's Orfeo and L'Incoronazione di Poppea and Handel's Jeptha, Tamerlano and Agrippina. Other conductors he has recorded with include Trevor Pinnock, Franz Bruggen, Ton Koopman and Nicholas McGegan. On his CD for Deutsche Grammophon — Michael Chance, the Art of Counter-tenor — he sings solo alto cantatas by Vivaldi with Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert.

His belief in extending the counter-tenor repertoire has prompted new work to be composed for him by Richard Rodney Bennett, Alexander Goehr, Tan Dun, Anthony Powers, John Tavener, and Elvis Costello amongst others. His television appearances include A Night at the Chinese Opera, Death in Venice, The Fairy Queen, the three Monteverdi operas with Netherlands Opera, Poppea with Welsh National Opera, Messiah in Dublin with Sir Neville Marriner, and in the autumn 1999 he was featured by the South Bank Show.

Recent engagements have included a tour with the Israel Camerata, a recital of music by Purcell at the Athens Concert Hall, a performance at the Wigmore Hall with the Purcell Quartet, Handel’s Messiah at the Concertgebouw and the Cadogan Hall with the Academy of Ancient Music and a series of masterclasses for the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh.

Other engagements include the premiere of The Lovely Ladies by Peter Cowdrey, based on the diaries of Michael Broadbent, Bach B Minor Mass with the Vasari Singers, Britten Canticles in Santiago and Haydn Nelson Mass at the Tonhalle, Zurich.

Michael was awarded the CBE in the 2009 New Years Honours List.