About

“[A] captivating voice… commanding and rich, with a remarkable ability to evoke deep emotion and leave his audience entranced.”

— Brent Opera, Lucia di Lammermoor

Oliver Bowes, baritone, is the Jessie Sumner Scholar at the Royal College of Music, where he studies with award-winning tenor Ben Johnson and pianist, director and repertoire coach Bryan Evans. He began his music-making as a treble at Ely Cathedral under Paul Trepte but has long since found himself sinking to greater vocal depths. After some years working as a composer with a focus upon dramatic and liturgical music, during which time he studied with composers John Pickard and David Bednall and won awards for his cantata CROW, setting Ted Hughes’ poetry, and his symphonic suite 5 Images after Szukalski. He was also honoured to both write and perform in a new operatic retelling of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray in association with LoveOpera in 2019. His work as a composer continues, with recent compositions including pieces for short films, choirs, solo singers and chamber ensembles, as well as a set of new orchestrations of operatic arias and classical songs for the Southrepps Festival.

Rediscovering himself once again as a singer, his recent projects have included performing as a Young Artist at the Southrepps Festival 2022, including singing alongside Ben Johnson and Sophie Bevan as the Counsel for the Plaintiff in Trial by Jury. Other roles include the eponymous King of Israel in Handel’s Saul and the handsome youth Adonis in Blow’s Venus and Adonis, both with Richmond Opera; Enrico Ashton in Brent Opera’s Lucia di Lammermoor directed by Louise Bakker; and, working closely with composers in a wide variety of styles, The Mariner in Contemporary Music Ventures’ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. He has also enjoyed performing as Figaro in excerpts from Il barbiere di Siviglia for RCM Opera Scenes and is looking forward to premiering I in Alisa Zaika’s I (Romance) for the RCM Contemporary Opera Scenes. He has recently been honoured to sing in masterclasses with Sir Thomas Allen, Pauliina Tukiainen, and Ben Johnson.

As a soloist for oratorio, he has this year been supported by the Josephine Baker Trust, who have invited him to sing in Mozart’s Requiem at the Leith Hill Music Festival under Jonathan Willcocks; Bach’s Johannespassion under Richard Pierce at Romsey Abbey; and soon Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle with Guildford Choral. He has also recently performed Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Chelsea Arts Club Singers and as Lucifero in Handel’s rarely-performed Italian oratorio La Resurrezione at St Barnabas, Ealing.