Few countertenors have pushed the boundaries of repertoire and sound more than Andrew Watts. A dramatic voice unlike any other, coupled with extraordinary stagecraft and presence make him a unique performer not only of parts traditionally associated with the voice type, but also a pioneer of 20th and 21st-century repertoire. He is associated particularly with parts like Edgar in Reiman’s Lear, which he has performed at Staatsoper Hamburg, Opéra national de Paris, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and at Bayerische Staatsoper Munich earlier this year. The piece will also take him to Staatstheater Hannover and Teatro Real Madrid next season.

As well as singing core roles of the countertenor repertoire, he has performed over 60 world premieres at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Festival, La Scala, La Fenice, Staatsoper Berlin, Opera de Lyon, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Berliner Philharmoniker; at the Salzburg, Bregenz, Lucerne, Aldeburgh and Edinburgh International Festivals; as well as the Ruhrtriennale and the BBC Proms. Andrew has created roles in major works by Harrison Birtwistle, Olga Neuwirth, Unsuk Chin, Nuñez, Guarnieri, Raymond Yiu, Michael Finnissey , Judith Weir, Torsten Rasch, Tansy Davies and Elena Langer.

More recent premieres include Mitterer’s Peter Pan in Bolzano, as well as Olga Neuwirth’s Keyframes for a Hippogriff  with the Berliner Philharmoniker; he has sung the work subsequently with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and will make his debut with the New York Philharmonic with it in 2024. In the current season, he also sang Neuwirth’s The Outcast at the Philharmonie de Paris with Ensemble Intercontemporrain, Chin’s Cantatatrix sopranica at Festival Présences and Schnittke’s Faust Cantata with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.