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The English tenor, Robert Johnston, began singing as a chorister in the choir of Salisbury Cathedral and studied subsequently at the Royal Academy of Music. As a member of The Tallis Scholars (Director: Peter Phillips), he appeared regularly in Japan, USA, Australia and all over Europe, recording extensively on CD, radio and television.
Robert Johnston now enjoys a firmly established solo concert career. Engagements have taken him to most of this country's cathedrals and to major concert venues throughout the UK, including the South Bank, Barbican, Bridgewater Hall, Royal Albert Hall and Symphony Hall, Birmingham. His comprehensive repertoire includes Britten's St. Nicolas and the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (with which he feels particular affinity and which he has recorded for BBC Radio Wales) and The Dream of Gerontius. In 1996, he made his début at the Three Choirs Festival as the Evangelist in J.S. Bach St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244) and at the Proms in 1998 in Kurt Weill’s Propheten. Concert engagements outside the UK take him world-wide. In recent seasons he has sung The Dream of Gerontius in South Africa, The Kingdom in the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, and on an international tour of J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244) with Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert.
Robert Johnston has broadcast on Classic FM and Radio 3 and recorded on the Philips label - Purcell, Schubert and Percy Grainger with John Eliot Gardiner. For television, he has recorded works by Carl Orff in Munich for the South Bank Show. He has recently made a recording with David Hill and The Bach Choir to promote the new carol book Noël.
His opera engagements include Second Priest in The Magic Flute with John Eliot Gardiner in Parma, Ferrara, Lisbon, Amsterdam and on CD, Vasek The Bartered Bride and the Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia at Aldeburgh, Benedict Béatrice et Bénédict in Canterbury, and Maintop in a recording of Billy Budd for Erato with Kent Nagano and the Hallé Orchestra.
Recent concert work includes: Hodie with the BBC Symphony Chorus Judas Maccabaeus, Theodora, Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248), Schnittke 4th Symphony with Martyn Brabbins, and Mr. Splinters in Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land with Leonard Slatkin and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Creation in Sri Lanka. Current season/future plans: Messiah, The Kingdom, St. Nicolas, Missa Solemnis, St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244). |
