British bass William Thomas is a recent graduate of the Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and recipient of a number of major awards, including the Kathleen Ferrier Award and John Christie Award in 2018, and the Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition in 2019. He is a 2021-23 BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist.
As a Jerwood Young Artist he sang the role of Nicholas in the British premiere of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa at the Glyndebourne Festival. Other recent appearances include Shepherd Pelléas et Mélisande (Garsington Opera), Snug, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Vienna State Opera) Zweiter Priester/Zweiter Geharnischter, Die Zauberflöte (Glyndebourne) and Colline La bohème at Alexandra Palace for the English National Opera.
Upcoming engagements include Ashby La fanciulla del West (Verbier Festival Orchestra/Valery Gergiev); Priest/Badger/Harašta The Cunning Little Vixen (concert performance with CBSO/Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla); Parsi Rustomji Satyagraha, Sciarrone Tosca and Colline La bohème for the English National Opera; a return to Glyndebourne and debuts with the Opéra de Rouen Normandie and the Opéra national de Paris.
Concert engagements have included Bach’s Johannes-Passion with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique/Sir John Eliot Gardiner; Messiah with the Orchestra of the English National Opera/Laurence Cummings; Bartok Cantata Profana with the London Symphony Orchestra/François-Xavier Roth and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Orchestre national de Lyon/Alan Gilbert.
William will perform in our Samling Artist Showcase at Wigmore Hall on 7 November 2021.
