Marcus Farnsworth

Marcus Farnsworth was awarded first prize in the 2009 Wigmore Hall International Song Competition, and the Song Prize at the 2011 Kathleen Ferrier Competition.

Forthcoming recitals include debut appearances at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and La Monnaie, Brussels with Mark Padmore and Julius Drake and a return to the Wigmore Hall to sing Tit for Tat with Malcolm Martineau and Canticles with Julius Drake as part of their 2012 Britten Festival. Recent highlights have included a Wigmore Hall recital with James Baillieu, and further recitals with Simon Lepper, Iain Burnside, and Graham Johnson. Marcus has also taken part in a Schubertiade with The Prince Consort in Perth and will appear with the Myrthen Ensemble at the Wigmore Hall in 2013.

Recent and future opera plans include Eddy in Mark-Anthony Turnage Greek for Music Theatre Wales; Novice’s Friend in a new production of Britten Billy Budd and English Clerk Death in Venice for English National Opera; the title role in Britten Owen Wingrave as part of the International Chamber Music Festival in Nuremberg, and, in concert, Kilian Der Freischütz with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Colin Davis and Aeneas in Purcell Dido and Aeneas for the Early Opera Company and Christian Curnyn at Wigmore Hall.

Current and future concert highlights include Nielsen Symphony No 3 with the LSO and Sir Colin Davis; Haydn Paukenmesse with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Bernard Labardie; St Matthew Passion (Christus and bass arias) in Lausanne, Switzerland and Wroclaw, Poland with the Gabrieli Consort and Paul McCreesh and Peter Maxwell Davies Eight Songs for a Mad King with the Wermlands Opera Orchestra, Karlstad, Sweden and also in a UK tour with the Hebrides Ensemble. In February 2013, Marcus will sing Son in a new work by David Sawer Flesh and Blood with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and later that year will take part in a European tour and recording of Thomas
Larcher’s Die Nacht der Verlorenen for baritone and ensemble.

Marcus has also recently sung Bach Ich habe Genug with the Academy of Ancient Music throughout the UK and on tour to France with whom he has also sung Bach St John Passion (arias) in London and Cambridge and Charpentier Te Deum in D at the Three Choirs Festival. Other concert appearances have included Bach St John Passion (Christus and bass arias) with the Gabrieli Consort in Berlin.

Marcus was a chorister at Southwell Minster and went on to study at Chetham’s School of Music before going on to read music at the University of Manchester, graduating with a first class honours degree. He completed his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in July 2011, where roles included Guglielmo Così fan tutte; Sid Albert Herring; Oreste in
Cavalli Giasone and Meredith in Peter Maxwell Davies Kommilitonen!