biography

British countertenor Andrew Radley specialises in the great opera roles written for the alto castrato voice by Handel and other leading composers of the 17th and 18th Centuries. He read Music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a choral scholar, before receiving scholarships to the postgraduate and opera courses at the Royal Academy of Music. He participated in an Erasmus exchange to the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMDP), where he studied with Pierre Mervant. He continues to learn with Noelle Barker, OBE.

His operatic roles have included Gandarte in Handel’s Poro for the Göttingen Handel Festival with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin conducted by Konrad Junghänel; the title role in Handel’s Flavio and Joachim in Handel’s Susanna for the Early Opera Company conducted by Christian Curnyn (Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, and the Lichfield, Iford, Cheltenham and Salisbury Festivals); the title role in Gluck’s Orfeo at the Spitalfields Festival; the title role in Handel’s Tamerlano for the Cambridge Handel Opera Group; Halimacus (cover) in Reinhard Keiser’s Croesus for Opera North with Harry Bickett; First Wise Man and covering the roles of Daniel and Cyrus in a production of Handel’s Belshazzar with René Jacobs at the Aix-en-Provence and Innsbruck Festivals and at the Berlin Staatsoper; Nireno in Handel's Giulio Cesare with the Freiburger Barockorchester under René Jacobs in Paris, Madrid, Valladolid and Castellón; and the title role in Handel’s Orlando for the Opera Theatre Company Ireland.

Among Andrew Radley's concert engagements are a recital in the Winchester Festival; Bach’s Mass in B minor at St Martin-in-the-Fields; Handel and Scarlatti cantatas in the London Handel Festival directed by Laurence Cummings; Handel’s Dixit Dominus at Snape Maltings with Richard Egarr (broadcast on BBC Radio 3); Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Britten Sinfonia at Ely Cathedral; and the role of Daniel in Handel’s Belshazzar at the Dartington Festival, with Graeme Jenkins. Andrew’s recent performances include Refugee in Jonathan Dove’s Flight for British Youth Opera conducted by Nicholas Cleobury, Orindo in Handel’s Admeto at the Göttingen Handel Festival and the Edinburgh Festival conducted by Nicholas McGegan, Didymus in Theodora with Laurence Cummings at the opening concert of the 2009 London Handel Festival and in Oslo, Medoro in Orlando with Opera Theatre Company Ireland and Christian Curnyn at the Buxton Festival, and Bach’s St John Passion with Arsys Bourgogne conducted by Pierre Cao.

Recent engagements include Handel’s Israel in Egypt with Arsys Bourgogne conducted by Pierre Cao, Edward in Arne’s Alfred with the Classical Opera Company and Ian Page, Carmina Burana at Cadogan Hall, Messiah with the Bachchor Mainz, Arsamene in Xerxes for Iford Festival Opera in a new production by David Freeman. He has also made his house debut as Hamor in Jephtha for the Royal Danish Opera in a production directed by Katie Mitchell, conducted by Lars Ulrik Mortensen.

Engagements this year and beyond include Medoro (Orlando) for Scottish Opera conducted by Paul Goodwin, Nireno (Giulio Cesare) for Opera North and Ottone (Agrippina) with the Cambridge Handel Opera Group. His first solo CD Conversazioni 1 has been released this summer on Avie Records to great critical acclaim.