Jonathan McGovern

Winner of the 2nd Prize at last year's Kathleen Ferrier Awards, the Karaviotis Prize at the Les Azuriales Ozone Young Artists Competition 2011 and the Jean Meikle Duo Prize at the 2011 Wigmore/Kohn International Song Competition, Jonathan McGovern graduated with a first-class honours degree in Music from King’s College London. He completed a PGD in Vocal Studies at the Royal Academy of Music and continued his studies with Royal Academy Opera. He graduated in June 2011 with distinction, receiving both a Dip RAM as well as ‘The Queen’s Commendation for Excellence’, given to the best all-round student of the year. He was also winner of the gold medal and 1st Prize at the Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition 2010 and held a Sybil Tutton Award administered by the Musicians Benevolent Fund. He is an Associate Artist with Classical Opera Company.

Operatic roles include Wu Tianshi and Pokayne in the première of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ opera Kommilitonen!; Shane Postcards from Dumbworld at Belfast Grand Opera House; Delfa in Cavalli’s Il Giasone; Sid with Royal Academy Opera in John Copley’s first Albert Herring; Fiorello and Figaro cover Barber of Seville on tour with Armonico Consort Opera and Don ParmenioneL’Occasione fa il ladro for RAO.

Whilst still at the RAM, he made his ENO debut as Jake in the world première of Two Boys by Nico Muhly. This was followed by Sid for the Britten Festival, as part of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, in a new production conducted by Steuart Bedford and directed by Oliver Mears. More recently, Jonathan returned to ENO as Yamadori Madam Butterfly and Papageno (cover) The Magic Flute.

Increasingly in demand as a recitalist, he has performed with pianists Julius Drake, Simon Lepper, Timothy End, James Baillieu and James Cheung. Recent highlights include an all Schubert programme with Julius Drake at St Olave’s Hart Street; a recital with Simon Lepper in the ‘Spring Voices’ series at the National Portrait Gallery and recitals at Chester Music Festival, St James’ Piccadilly and the Forge Camden with Timothy End, with whom he held a residency at the Royal Over-Seas League recital series at the Edinburgh Festival 2010. He is a member of the Royal Academy of Music Song Circle with whom he has appeared at the Wigmore Hall and at the King’s Place Festival.  Engagements last season included recitals for Opera de Lille (with Simon Lepper), his Royal Over-Seas League Prizewinner’s recital in January 2012, a Kirckman Concert Society recital with pianist James Cheung and the Ferrier Celebration Concert, all at Wigmore Hall, and at the Machynlleth Festival. With Malcolm Martineau he also recorded songs by Felix Mendelssohn for the Champs Hill label, to be released in 2013.

Concert work includes his BBC Proms debut in The Yeoman of the Guard with Jane Glover and the BBC Philharmonic this summer, Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer with the Orchestra of the City at St James's Piccadilly, and Bernstein's Candide with the Cambridge Philharmonic

Future engagements include recitals at the LSE and the London Song Festival, Boatswain HMS Pinafore for Raymond Gubbay productions at London's Barbican, in Edinburgh and Birmingham, the title role in Telemann’s Orfeo  with Classical Opera Company and Ian Page at the London Handel Festival, and a return to ENO for the world premiere of Michel van der Aa's opera The Sunken Garden, as well as Deborah Warner's new production of Death in Venice. He will return to the recording studio for an album of songs by Claude Debussy, with Malcolm Martineau.