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Andrew Watts

Andrew Watts is a fixture of countertenor singing in Britain and beyond, with a repertory ranging from the Baroque to the present day and from opera to choral music and song. In 2021, Watts appeared on the Delphian label in a recording of music by Raymond Yiu. Watts was born in Hammersmith in west London on December 29, 1967. His father was a soccer (football) player, and his mother a restaurant manager. Watts showed musical talent as a child and took up the clarinet, saxophone, voice, and piano. Offered a scholarship to the prestigious Eton private school, he turned it down because his parents were unable to afford the associated expenses. He later saw that as a blessing, telling blogger Pamela Hickman that "there is a sort-of pattern of Eton and other private schools, with people coming out in a certain way. I come out as myself, as my own type of singer rather than a traditional choral scholar singer." Watts enrolled at the junior school of the Royal Academy of Music and moved on to full-time undergraduate study there (switching from clarinet to voice and from baritone vocals to countertenor singing on the advice of teachers along the way). Watts has sung Baroque opera at major British houses, including Covent Garden, the BBC Proms, and the English National Opera. Abroad, he has appeared at La Scala in Milan, the Staatsoper in Berlin, the Teater an der Wien, and many other European houses. Watts's career is notable for the number of parts in contemporary operas that have been composed especially for him. These include parts in Unsuk Chin's Alice in Wonderland, The Duchess of Malfi by Torsten Rasch, The Navigator by Liza Lim, and two operas, The Minotaur and Gawain, by Harrison Birtwistle, who has also composed songs for Watts. He is also an enthusiastic performer of solo parts in major choral repertory, including Handel's Messiah, and has appeared with the BBC Symphony, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and festival orchestras in Europe, North America, and Australia. Watts has appeared on various operatic recordings, and in 2018 the large variety of songs written for him were collected on a new recording, A Countertenor Songbook, which included his performances of works by Michael Tippett, Michael Finnissy, Joe Cutler, Raymond Yiu, Tansy Davies, Neville Bower, and Colin Matthews. In 2021, Watts was featured in Raymond Yiu's Symphony for countertenor and orchestra on The World Was Once All Miracle, a collection of Yiu's works for voice and orchestra. He is on the faculty at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and he has also taught at the Hamburg Staatsoper and the Dartington International Summer School. He has served as vocal coach to the Jette Parker Young Artists at the Royal Opera House.
© James Manheim /TiVo

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5 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller

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