John Shirley-Quirk

British baritone John Shirley-Quirk loved singing and taking part in the violin as a kid, but his accurate vocal talent didn’t become obvious until he had been learning chemistry and physics in the University or college of Liverpool. After many years of teaching those topics at a English Air Force train station, he started to study using the baritone Roy Henderson (1957). In 1961-1962, he sang using the Cathedral Choir at St. John’s in London; through the same period he produced his debut at Glydebourne in 1961 mainly because Gregor Mittenhofer in Henze’s Elegy for Small Enthusiasts. In 1963, Benjamin Britten recruited him to become listed on his British Opera Group; with this group he sang the premiere shows of Britten’s Curlew River, The Burning up Fiery Furnace, The Prodigal Kid, Owen Wingrave, and Loss of life in Venice (between 1964 and 1973). Throughout that period, he also sang Guglielmo in Così enthusiast tutte and, afterwards, Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande on the Scottish Country wide Opera. He made the function of Lev in Tippett’s The Glaciers Break at Covent Backyard in 1977. Though his profession centered around United kingdom venues as well as the music of British composers, Shirley-Quirk’s profession was in no way provincial. He sang his first shows of Wozzeck in St. Louis, and debuted in Berlin with Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle in 1969. Milan’s Teatro alla Scala involved him as Rangoni in Boris Godunov, and in 1974 he produced his Metropolitan Opera debut in Britten’s Loss of life in Venice. Various other important assignments in his profession were the Loudspeaker in Pass away Zauberflöte as well as the Music Get good at in Ariadne auf Naxos. Shirley-Quirk acquired equal success being a recital and concert vocalist. He was respectable for his interpretation from the main choral functions of Bach and Elgar and sang Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn on many concerts in European countries, THE UNITED STATES, and Australia. His recitals generally included music by his coach Benjamin Britten in addition to those of Vaughan Williams and Butterworth. John Shirley-Quirk’s lyric baritone tone of voice, while not huge, commanded a broad powerful and expressive range; he previously a wonderful feeling of phrasing. It had been being a Lied interpreter that he was most widely known; his intellectual interest allowed him to explore the internal globe of the functions he sang. His recordings, especially of the functions of Benjamin Britten, record his great artistry. In 1975 he was called a Commander from the Order from the British Empire.