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Bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams enjoys a vibrant career on both the opera and concert stage and is graced with a vocal versatility that allows him to present a repertoire ranging from the classics of Bach, Gluck, Handel, and Mozart through to more recent masters such as Britten, Debussy, Stravinsky, and Wagner.
Andrew Foster-Williams’ career, initially built on his strong Baroque credentials, has in recent seasons found a new dramatic direction with successes as Pizarro (Fidelio) at Theater an der Wien and Philharmonie de Paris and a unanimously praised debut as Telramund in Wagner’s Lohengrin under esteemed conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Lanaudière Festival. A subsequent portrayal of Captain Balstrode in Christoph Loy’s divisive new production of Peter Grimes at Theater an der Wien alongside acclaimed performances as Nick Shadow (The Rake’s Progress), Donner (Das Rheingold), Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande) and Gunther (Götterdämmerung) have further enhanced a highly regarded operatic profile. Foster-Williams’ dramatic capacity has earned the respect of many of the most acclaimed stage directors as he “holds the attention of the audience with the energy of someone who has great experience, and with sensational vocal ability, which he uses with total freedom…” (Opéra).
An impressive line-up of concert invitations has taken Andrew Foster-Williams to major stages with the most celebrated orchestras and conductors of our day including the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst, Salzburg Mozarteum with Ivor Bolton, San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas, Concertgebouw Orkest with Richard Egarr, Hong Kong Philharmonic under Edo de Waart, and the London Symphony Orchestra with the late Sir Colin Davis.
Foster-Williams offers a concert repertoire as diverse as it is broad and includes Bach’s Matthäus-Passion and Johannes-Passion, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Britten’s War Requiem, Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast.
Boasting an extensive discography, commercial releases include Beethoven’s Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II with the San Francisco Symphony (Tilson Thomas) released on SFSMedia, The Seasons with the London Symphony Orchestra (Davis) on LSO Live, and most recently, HMS Pinafore with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera (Egarr) on Linn. Performances captured on DVD include the Gramophone Award winning The Fairy Queen with Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Christie).
In the current season, Andrew Foster-Williams sings the title role in Les voyages de Don Quichotte at Opéra de Bordeaux to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Cervantes and is drawn from a selection of music by Massenet, Ravel and de Falla. He can also be heard in performances of St John Passion with the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst, and as Escamillo in a new production of Carmen staged by Kasper Holten on the lake at the Bregenz Festival.