Gwilym Bowen

Acclaimed for the clarity and beauty of his singing and dynamic stage presence, British tenor Gwilym Bowen performs internationally with orchestras and ensembles of the highest caliber. The years 2020-21 being somewhat disrupted, his most recent engagements include James MacMillan’s All the Hills and Vales Along at the Edinburgh Festival; Dussek’s Messe Solemnelle with the Academy of Ancient Music; a Purcell program, "Gabriel – An Entertainment with Trumpet" with The English Concert; Alison Balsom and Harry Bicket at the Barbican; Messiah with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Queensland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stephen Layton; and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Oslo Philharmonic under François Leleux. The April 2023 performances of The St. Matthew Passion mark his debut with Music of the Baroque.

With repertoire ranging from the Baroque to the contemporary, with a specialist interest in Bach, Monteverdi, and Handel, Gwilym Bowen's operatic highlights include Valletto in L’incoronazione di Poppea for Angers-Nantes Opéra; Eurimaco/Giove in Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria at The Grange Festival; Damon in Acis and Galatea with Academy of Ancient Music at the Barbican; Sylph in Rameau's Zaïs with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at Queen Elizabeth Hall; and Father in Hasse’s Piramo e Tisbe with The Mozartists. Opera roles have also included Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress and Pelléas in Pelléas et Mélisande. Forthcoming engagements include debuts at Opera de Lille, L’atelier lyrique de Tourcoing, Opéra de Montréal, and a return to The Grange Festival as Snout in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

In concert, Gwilym Bown has sung The Evangelist in the St. John Passion with John Butt and BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the St. Matthew Passion for De Nederlandse Bachvereniging and Auckland Philharmonia. Other concert highlights include Bach cantatas with Masaaki Suzuki at Lincoln Center, Monteverdi and Schütz with the Dunedin Consort, The Christmas Oratorio across Australia with Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Das Lied von der Erde with the City of London Sinfonia, Ernst Wilhelm Wolf’s Passionsoratorium with Die Kölner Akademie, and Messiah with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Hanover Band, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Gwilym Bowen's recordings include the St. John Passion arias with De Nederlandse Bachvereniging, a world premiere Welsh translation of the Mass in B Minor with the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge and OAE for Hyperion, Petrus in Handel’s _Brockes Passion_with AAM and Concerto Copenhagen, and the world premiere recording of Dussek’s Messe solemnelle.