Winner of the 2024 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Scottish tenor Matthew McKinney sang with Glyndebourne Festival Chorus this summer, and returns to English Touring Opera to perform Beethoven’s An Die Ferne Geliebte, as part of a newly compiled work Do Not Take My Story for a Fairy Tale, while covering the Tsar in a new English translation of The Snow Maiden.
Other operatic roles include Damon Acis & Galatea for Ryedale Festival in 2022 and covering Henrik A Little Night Music at Opera North, having sung the role for Buxton International Festival in 2021. In 2023 he sang Luigino Il viaggio a Reims and Rustighello Lucrezia Borgia in new productions for ETO, and recently recorded Gastone La traviata (OperaGlass Works) and Rodolfo La bohème on Robin Norton-Hale’s forthcoming feature produced by Finite Films.
“The most sincere, and grateful, congratulations must be to Matthew McKinney, the winner of the First Prize, for three rounds of passionate, committed singing, that in its outstanding communicative power celebrated so movingly the spirit of Ferrier herself.”
David Syrus, Chair of The Kathleen Ferrier Awards jury 2024
Following recent success at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Matthew is establishing himself as an accomplished recitalist, touring with duo partner Roelof Temmingh throughout the UK and Ireland in 2025 including; London (Bechstein Hall), Glasgow (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), Cambridge, Dublin, Oxford, Cornwall, Devon and Surrey. As a concert soloist, performances include Bach’s St John Passion, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mozart’s Requiem and Puccini’s Messe Di Gloria (The Orchestra of Scottish Opera). Matthew returns to Scotland this Autumn to perform Macmillan’s All the Hills and Vales Along and in 2025 will debut as a soloist for the Dunedin Consort’s tour of Bach’s St Matthew Passion.
Operatic choruses include Berlioz’ La Damnation du Faust, Bizet’s Carmen, Jonathan Dove’s The Day After, Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Korsakov’s The Golden Cockrel, Lehar’s The Merry Widow, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel, Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, Stravinski’s The Rake’s Progress, Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Die Götterdämmerung and Tristan Und Isolde and Weill’s Street Scene. Matthew’s heavily featured cameo role in Glyndebourne’s The Merry Widow, will be televised by the BBC on Boxing Day 2024.
Matthew is a graduate of The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he was taught by Stephen Robertson and gratefully supported by the Robertson Trust, John Mather Rising Star scholarship, Help Musicians (Ian Fleming) Award, Sir James Caird Travelling Scholarship, WFT Anderson Scholarship, The Underwood Trust Scholarship and The Dale Scholarship. Matthew now studies with Robert Dean and has regular coaching with Jane Robinson and Nicky Spence.
Alongside his growing career as a soloist, Matthew has a love for community music and music outreach. Over the years Matthew has loved conducting community choirs, touring new opera for children around England, helping run interactive music workshops for toddlers, and being a part of charity organisations like Streetwise Opera.
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Video
YouTube playlist includes:
- Bleuet, Poulenc
- Parigi è la città dei desideri, La rondine, Puccini
- Marechiare, Tosti
- Rome is now ruled, The Rape of Lucretia, Britten
- Ecco do Dolci Raggi il Sol Armato, Monteverdi
- Here I stand, The Rake’s Progress, Stravinsky
- Midnight on the Great Western, Britten
- That did I always love, Heggie
Reviews
“Matthew McKinney stood out for his character acting skills as Alfonso’s murderous henchman, Rustighello: a promising young tenor.”
Opera Magazine
“The easy tenor of Matthew McKinney was to be relished musically as much as it was dramatically.”
Bachtrack
“Top of the list must come Matthew McKinney’s Rustighello, Alfonso’s sidekick who seemed to take great joy in murderous deeds and McKinney brought this out with his body language, aligned to a finely lithe and characterful voice.”
Planet Hugill
“The best voices belong to Daniella Sicari as the young wife Anne Egerman and Matthew McKinney as her repressed son Henrik.”
The Telegraph
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