Bass-Baritone
Bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams enjoys a vibrant career on both the opera and concert stage. He 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.
In the current season Andrew Foster-Williams’ appearances include Iphigenie en Tauride with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Laurence Cummings at the George Enescu International Festival, Christmas Oratorio with Oslo Philharmonic under François Leleux, La damnation de Faust with the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra under Lan Shui, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Jaap van Zweden and Beethoven’s Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski.
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 Festival de Lanaudière. A subsequent portrayal of Captain Balstrode in Christoph Loy’s divisive production of Peter Grimes at Theater an der Wien, alongside acclaimed performances as Nick Shadow (The Rake’s Progress), Donner (Das Rheingold) and Gunther (Götterdämmerung) have further enhanced a highly regarded operatic profile. Last season included role debuts as Lysiart in a new staging of Euryanthe by Christof Loy at Theater an der Wien under Constantin Trinks as well as Kurnewal in a new production of Tristan und Isolde at La Monnaie under Alain Altinoglu. 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).
Highly praised for his facility in the French operatic repertoire, recent roles include Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande), his debut as Escamillo in Kasper Holten’s spectacular staging of Carmen on the floating stage in Bregenz, as well as specially curated performances at Opéra National de Bordeaux to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Cervantes and featuring music from Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée and Massenet’s Don Quichotte under the baton of Music Director Marc Minkowski. As a regular guest on the Opéra français series on the Palazzetto Bru Zane label, recent CD releases include Joncières’ Dimitri, Gounod’s Cinq-Mars, Saint-Saëns’ Proserpine, winner of Best Opera 2018 at the International Classical Music Awards and, most recently, Gounod’s Faust.
Boasting an extensive discography, other commercial releases include Beethoven’s Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II with the San Francisco Symphony (Tilson Thomas) released on SFSMedia, and The Seasons with the Gabrieli Consort and Players (McCreesh) released on Signum which was shortlisted for the 2017 Grammophone Awards. Performances captured on DVD include the Gramophone Award winning The Fairy Queen with Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Christie).
An impressive line-up of concert invitations has taken Andrew Foster-Williams to the most celebrated orchestras and conductors of our day. These include The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst, Salzburg Mozarteum with Ivor Bolton, San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with Richard Egarr, Hong Kong Philharmonic under Edo de Waart and the Gulbenkian Orchestra with Lorenzo Viotti. Foster-Williams offers a concert repertoire as diverse as it is broad which includes Bach’s Matthäus-Passion, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Beethoven’s Symphony No.9, Britten’s War Requiem, Schönberg’s Gurrelieder, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, Mahler’s Symphony No.8 and Mendelssohn’s Elijah.
