Iestyn Morris

Iestyn is the 2005 winner of the Tracey Chadwell award for contemporary song. Currently at the Guildhall's Opera School, Iestyn studies with Andrew Watts.

At the age of thirteen, when a Music Scholar to Highgate School, Iestyn was chosen by the ENO to sing 'Miles' in Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw at 'Il Teatro La Fenice' in Venice conducted by Stuart Bedford.

In 1992 Iestyn joined the Junior Academy of Music to study violin and piano. During this time he developed his counter tenor voice and sung the cantor part in Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, with the Junior Academy Choir.

As an undergraduate, Iestyn read Mechanical Engineering and French at the University of Bristol, combining this with his daily duties as Alto Lay-Clerk to the Choir of Bristol Cathedral. Now Iestyn can regularly be seen deputising at Wesminster Abbey and other major churches in and around the City of London

In 2003 Iestyn Became a Britten-Pears Young Artist, performing Bach's Mass in B Minor, under the direction of Richard Egarr, at the Snape Maltings.

Last year's highlights include performances of the Messiah by Handel, a return to Bach's Mass in B minor, this time at The Royal Festival Hall with Philharmonia Voices, conducted by András Schiff, and a summer tour of France with the Galuppi quartet and the choir of King's College, performing Pergolesi's Stabat Mater.

Iestyn Made his Queen Elizabeth Hall debut in November 2004 as The Israelitish Messenger and Priest in Handel's Judas Maccabaeus, with The New London Orchestra, conducted by Ronald Corp.

Among this season's highlights there have been performances of Bach's St. Matthew Passion with The Bournemouth Bach Choir and Orchestra, Purcell's The Fairy Queen (funded by the National Lottery) and Guildhall Opera's English language premiere production of l'Augellino Belverde by Jonathan Dove (1994) in which Iestyn played the title role to high critical acclaim.