Trainees 2010/11

Sopranos
Lucinda-Mirikata Deacon
Susana Gaspar
Aoife O'Sullivan

Mezzo-sopranos
Maire Flavin
Justina Gringyte
Hanna Hipp

Tenors
Tyler Clarke
Nathan Vale
John Pierce

Baritones
Oliver Dunn

Bass
Jimmy Holliday
Ross McInroy

Repetiteurs
Sonia Ben-Santamaria
Julian Black
Elizabeth Rossiter
Heather Tomala

Duncan Rock baritone

Duncan Rock is already making his mark as an outstanding young singer and performer.  As 2010 Jerwood Young Artist at Glyndebourne Festival Opera he was awarded the prestigious John Christie Award. The same year he won the Overseas Award from the Royal Overseas League Singing Competition overseas award, was a Samling Scholar, a Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist, and a finalist in the Kathleen Ferrier Competition.

For Glyndebourne he has sung roles in Così fan Tutte (directed by Nicholas Hytner), The Rake’s Progress (designed by David Hockney), Michael Grandage’s new staging of Billy Budd, and the acclaimed production of L’Incoronazione di Poppea.

Duncan holds a Masters Degree in Music and Opera from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where he received a full scholarship from the Independent Opera foundation. He was a major prize-winner at the 2009 Mozart International Singing Competition and, in 2006, was presented with Australia’s most prestigious young singers’ award, the Marianne Mathy Award, by the late Dame Joan Sutherland.

Duncan has taken master classes at the Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg and was a Steans Institute Young Artist at the 2009 Ravinia Festival in Chicago. He has also appeared at the Royal National Theatre, performed for Queen Elizabeth II at Australia House, and sang in front of a television audience of millions at the 2009 Ashes opening ceremony in Cardiff.  Duncan has sung Rachmaninov songs at the Barbican Centre with the London Symphony Orchestra and the bass lead in Handel’s Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall conducted by Sir David Willcocks. He has worked with some of the world’s leading musicians and performers including Sir Mark Elder, Sir Charles Mackerras, Vladimir Yurovsky, Sir Thomas Allen, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Malcolm Martineau, Graham Johnson and Iain Burnside.

He has performed solo roles with Glyndebourne, British Youth Opera, Opera Holland Park, Longborough Festival Opera, and was a Young Artist with the West Australian Opera. Operatic roles have included:  Marcello and Schaunard La Boheme, Papageno The Magic Flute, Count Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro, Tarquinius The Rape of Lucretia and the title roles in Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro.

This July Duncan will sing the title role in Don Giovanni for the Iford Music Festival and will be a featured artist on a Kirker Music Cruise in June.