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Grammy-award wining Canadian baritone Gerald Finley has become one of the leading singers and dramatic interpreters of his generation, with award-winning performances and recordings on CD and DVD and performing at the world’s major opera and concert venues in a wide variety of repertoire. In opera, Mr Finley has sung all the major baritone roles of Mozart. His Don Giovanni has been seen in New York, London, Paris, Salzburg, Munich, Rome, Vienna, Prague, Tel Aviv, Budapest and Glyndebourne, recently released on DVD. As the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro, his appearances include the Royal Opera Covent Garden (Opus Arte DVD), Salzburg Festival (2007, 2009), Paris, Vienna and Amsterdam. At the New York Met his roles have included Don Giovanni, Golaud and Marcello. Critical successes also include Eugene Onegin and Golaud at Covent Garden, Iago in Otello with Sir Colin Davis and the LSO (LSO Live), the title role in Guillaume Tell with Accademia di Santa Cecilia and Antonio Pappano (EMI) and his debut performances as Hans Sachs at the Glyndebourne Festival (Opus Arte DVD). In contemporary opera, Mr Finley has excelled in creating leading roles, most notably Howard K. Stern in Turnage’s Anna Nicole at Covent Garden

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Grammy-award wining Canadian baritone Gerald Finley has become one of the leading singers and dramatic interpreters of his generation, with award-winning performances and recordings on CD and DVD and performing at the world’s major opera and concert venues in a wide variety of repertoire.

In opera, Mr Finley has sung all the major baritone roles of Mozart. His Don Giovanni has been seen in New York, London, Paris, Salzburg, Munich, Rome, Vienna, Prague, Tel Aviv, Budapest and Glyndebourne, recently released on DVD. As the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro, his appearances include the Royal Opera Covent Garden (Opus Arte DVD), Salzburg Festival (2007, 2009), Paris, Vienna and Amsterdam. At the New York Met his roles have included Don Giovanni, Golaud and Marcello.

Critical successes also include Eugene Onegin and Golaud at Covent Garden, Iago in Otello with Sir Colin Davis and the LSO (LSO Live), the title role in Guillaume Tell with Accademia di Santa Cecilia and Antonio Pappano (EMI) and his debut performances as Hans Sachs at the Glyndebourne Festival (Opus Arte DVD). In contemporary opera, Mr Finley has excelled in creating leading roles, most notably Howard K. Stern in Turnage’s Anna Nicole at Covent Garden  (Opus Arte) and J. Robert Oppenheimer in John Adam’s Doctor Atomic (New York Met, ENO London, San Francisco, Chicago and Amsterdam) (DVD available on Opus Arte and Sony), as Harry Heegan in Mark Anthony Turnage’s The Silver Tassie at ENO, and Jaufré Rudel in Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de loin for the much-acclaimed premieres in Santa Fe, Paris and Helsinki (DVD).

Most recent concert appearances included works by Sibelius and Walton with the BBC Symphony, Janacek with the Berlin Philharmonic, Harbison’s 5th Symphony with the Boston Symphony, Mozart Requiem and Missa Solemnis with the Concertgebouw Orchestra and Elgar’s Coronation Ode at the First Night of the 2012 BBC Proms. He concluded the 2011/12 season with appearances at the Festivals of Toronto, Tanglewood, Ottawa Chamber, Ravinia and Grafenegg.

As a recitalist, he works regularly with Julius Drake. They recently performed at the Wigmore Hall, the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade, New York’s Alice Tully Hall, and Madrid’s Teatro della Zarzuela.

Mr Finley’s CD releases are devoted to songs of Barber and Ives, “Dichterliebe” by Schumann, “Songs by Ravel”, and Britten’s “Songs and Proverbs” all in partnership with Julius Drake on the Hyperion label, and have been critically acclaimed, including the 2008. 2009 and 2011 Gramophone Award in the 'Solo Vocal' category. In 2012 the DVD release of John Adam’s Doctor Atomic in which Gerald Finley appeared as J. Robert Oppenheimer was awarded the Grammy for ‘Best Opera Recording’. His latest CD “Liederkreis” was released in October 2012.

2012/13 starts with a return to the BBC Proms as Chou en Lai in Nixon in China with the BBC Symphony, followed by Brahms’ Requiem with the Concertgebouw, which he will also perform with the Toronto and London Symphony Orchestras later in the season. Further highlights include recitals across Europe, Le nozze di Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera New York, Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Schönberg’s A survivor from Warsaw with Andris Nelsons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, Frankfurt and Luxembourg, concerts in Australia, Mahler’s Wunderhorn Lieder with the Czech Philharmonic, Alexander’s Feast by Handel under the baton of Nikolaus Harnoncourt at Vienna’s Musikverein, Les espaces du sommeil with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Don Giovanni at the Bavarian State Opera and Il Prigioniero with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.  Mr Finley concludes the season with Cosi fan tutte at the Salzburg Festival.

Gerald Finley, born in Montreal, began singing as a chorister in Ottawa, Canada, and completed his musical studies in the UK at the Royal College of Music, King’s College, Cambridge, and the National Opera Studio.

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Reviews

"Mr. Finley has long been recognized as a recitalist of rare versatility, a concert artist of the first rank and an opera singer of distinction in a broad repertory "

The New York Times

""...a beautiful pendant to Finley and Drake's 2008 album of Dichterliebe.""

Gerald Finley and Julius Drake: "SCHUMANN: Liederkreis, Op. 24 & 39" - Opera News, William R. Braun

"After a life-long referral as a critic you think, you know Schubert’s “Winterreise”. […] But the Canadian baritone Gerald Finley and Julius Drake, his British accompanist reinvent "Winterreise", with a provocative, almost serene calm that savors the Wanderers pain in detail as if under a magnifying glass while suffering with him. […] And of course with his dream voice, a wonderfully full, seamless baritone, which he takes back often and lets only blossom into full size during dramatic moments ("Die Nebensonnen"). "

Schubertiade - Fritz Jurmann, Voralberger Nachrichten

"I found Finley's account of these five songs quietly gripping. It seemed to combine those most unlikely partners, assuredness and frailty. When appropriate, he could produce a ghostly, almost bodiless head-voice. In more animated moments his tone was effortlessly strong and rich. The final bars [...] were haunting."

Brahms' German Requiem, Usher Hall - Alan Coady, bachtrack.com

"Gerald Finley, in a powerfully controlled yet emotional performance [...], cut to the heart of the music..."

Brahms' German Requiem, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall - Michael Tumelty, heraldscotland.com

"[The words] were sung [...] by the baritone Gerald Finley [...] whose understanding of their quiet, autumnal ecstasy was palpable in a performance heaped with throbbing tenderness and sublime passion."

Brahms' German Requiem, Edinburgh Usher Hall - Kenneth Walton, Scotsman.com

"Finley's tone was velvety smooth, and his projection and characterisation impeccable. "

Andrew Clements, The Guardian

"In the title role, baritone Gerald Finley is at the top of his game. [Re: CD Reviews: Rossini - William Tell, EMI Classics June 2011] "

BBC Music Magazine

"...aided by the Hans Sachs of Gerald Finley that at times touches the heights of mastersinging, in a performance that is the complete package. His bass-baritone sound, warm, lyrical, intensely expressive (helped as well by his superb German diction) is complemented by an onstage character who becomes immensely sympathetic as the evening progresses. Finley illustrates and conveys all this with natural ease, moving beautifully, and singing the role as thrillingly as I have ever heard it. Finley’s voice is not only big enough, it is noble, resonant (his bass extension is particularly fine in the Glyndebourne acoustic) and utterly right for the part. His ovation at the end told its own story... a debut performance by Finley, who will surely become the Hans Sachs of our times. [Re: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, May 2011]"

Mike Reynolds, MusicalCriticism.com

"His elegant baritone, which has gained in muscle since his Hans Sachs at Glydebourne in the summer, brought beauty as well as Nordic angst to the two Swedish songs and rose proudly to the lyrical grandeur of the epic 'Koskenlaskijan morsiamet'."

Richard Fairman, Financial Times.

"William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast is English oratorio at its most unbuttoned. Baritone Gerald Finley delivered the solos with the clarity of an orator, and the visionary nobility of a prophet."

Nick Kimberley, London Evening Standard.

"Only the endlessly expressive diction of Gerald Finley (rarely have consonants yielded so much distaste as his at the excess of the Babylonians) betrayed the work's unimpeachably British credentials."

Alexandra Coghlan,The Arts Desk

"Baritone soloist Gerald Finley was alert and sonorous...he has fully seized the opportunities offered by three of Sibelius's rarely heard orchestral songs."

George Hall, Guardian.co.uk

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Discography