Johnny Herford

Johnny Herford graduated this summer from the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with Mark Wildman. For Royal Academy Opera he created the role of Hans Scholl in the world premiere of Peter Maxwell's opera Kommilitonen, and sang the roles of Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Traveller in Britten's Curlew River, Peachum in Weill’s Die Dreigroschenoper, and Edmund Bertram in Dove's Mansfield Park. Since leaving the RAM, he has performed in The Magic Flute (Papageno) at the Bath Festival, and sung the role of Chao Lin in Weir’s A Night at the Chinese Opera for British Youth Opera. Future operatic plans include Les Mamelles de Tiresias (Gendarme) for Britten-Pears Young Artists at Aldeburgh and Gervasoni’s Limbus Limbo (Carl) for Exaudi in Salzburg and Berlin.

Performances with orchestras include Haydn’s Seasons, Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Passions, B-Minor Mass and Christmas Oratorio, Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs, Brahms’ German Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Stravinsky’s Les Noces. He recently sang the baritone solo in the UK premiere of Sibelius’s Kuolema with the English Chamber Orchestra at Kings Place.

Recital highlights have included a performance of Winterreise at the Forge, Camden, performances on BBC Radio 3’s ‘In Tune’, at Kings Place, at the Oxford Lieder Festival, and at the London English Song Festival with William Vann.

Johnny is a Sickle Foundation Scholar, and has also been generously supported by the John Lewis Partnership, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Josephine Baker Trust.