Ep. 23: Patrick Terry

*All Talking Classical podcasts formerly on SoundCloud have been redirected to Anchor.*  An interview with rising young countertenor Patrick Terry, who will be performing in Handel’s oratorio Susanna at the Royal Opera House in early March. Many thanks to Patrick for taking time out of a full day of rehearsals to talk, and the Press & Communications Team at the Royal Opera House for initiating and organising this interview! Published 3rd March 2020; interview recorded 8th February 2020. Winner of the Loveday Song Prize at the 2017 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Second Prize at the 2019 Handel Singing Competition and a Samling Artist, Patrick Terry was born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin. He earned his Bachelor’s of Music from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, where he studied with Adriana Zabala, and graduated from London’s Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with Caitlin Hulcup and Michael Chance on the Opera Course with generous support from the Josephine Baker Trust and the John J Adams Scholarship, in Summer 2018. Selected for the 2018 Leeds Lieder Young Artists Festival, further competition success has included Second Prize at the 2019 Handel Singing Competition, Second Prize at the 2015 Joan Chissell Schumann Lieder Competition, winning the 2014 Maureen Lehane Vocal Award and winning the 2017 Richard Lewis / Jean Shanks Award. For Royal Academy Opera, he sang The Refugee Flight and Ruggiero Alcina. Operatic engagements have included The Boy / Angel 1 Written On Skin with the Melos Sinfonia, Oberon A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Chicago Summer Opera, Rosencrantz in Brett Dean’s Hamlet for Glyndebourne On Tour and the title role in Teseo with La Nuova Musica at the 2018 London Handel Festival. Concert highlights have included a Wigmore Hall appearance with Imogen Cooper, whilst his broadcasts include In Tune for BBC Radio 3. Patrick Terry is a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. During 2018 / 2019, he travelled to Japan to appear in Le Promesse (Gala Concert by Young Opera Singers Tomorrow of the World) at the New National Theatre, Tokyo, and sang Arsace Berenice and Artemis in Hans Werner Henze’s Phaedra at the Linbury Theatre. He also returned to the Wigmore Hall for Heroes and Villains, appeared in Beyond Jerusalem: The Life and Times of Sir Charles Hubert Parry at the London Song Festival, sang J. S. Bach Magnificat and Handel The Choice of Hercules with the London Handel Orchestra and Ruggiero Alcina with La Nuova Music and made his debut with Glyndebourne Festival Opera as Eustazio Rinaldo. His engagements this season include debuts with Music Theatre Wales as Serafino The Intelligence Park, at The Grange Festival as Oberon A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with Cologne Opera as Rosencrantz Hamlet, with the Early Opera Company as Arsamenes Serse and a return to the Royal Opera as Joacim Susanna Engagements during 2020 / 2021 include debuts with Opera North as Ruggiero Alcina, with Classical Opera as Farnace Mitridate, Rè di Ponto and with Irish National Opera as Andronicus in Vivaldi’s Bajazet. He will also take part in the world première of an Evolution Cantata by Brett Dean with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, which he will also sing with the Orchestre national de Lyon.