Andrew Macnair

After successfully completing a doctorate in nuclear physics at the University of Kent at Canterbury, Andrew embarked upon a career in music. He subsequently spent a year on The Knack (a performance course run by ENO Baylis) and several years as a Gentleman in Ordinary at Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace.

He attended the Deller Academy of Early Music, a summer school based in the south of France, on several occasions and has returned to the country to sing the role of the Sailor (Dido and Aeneus) at the Artois Music Festival, Bethune, and to take the romantic lead in a Comedie Musical Franco-Brittanique for Channel Arts Link in Wimereux.

Opera credits include the roles of Drunken Guest in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for the Royal Opera, Don Basilio & Don Curzio in a national tour of The Marriage of Figaro for the London Opera Players, Bob Boles in Peter Grimes for Surrey Opera and Fenton in Falstaff for New Sussex Opera. Other appearances include the role of Ralph Rackstraw in HMS Pinafore for Opera Options, First Yeoman in The Yeomen of the Guard for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Vistola Fiume in the UK premiere of Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero dal’Isola d’Alcina (the first opera to be written by a woman) for Arts Etc. and one of Raguel’s men in the world premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Tobias and the Angel for Almeida Opera. He has also sung the roles of Blind (Die Fledermaus), Charles Edward Stuart (Candide), Nathaniel (The Tales of Hoffman), 1st Priest & 1st Armoured Man and Parpignol.

Andrew was a regular member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and performed in several productions at the Savoy Theatre in London's West End. He also took part in H.M.S. Pinafore at the Shubert Performing Arts Centre, New Haven, Connecticut and on the national tour. He has also worked for ENO’s Contemporary Opera Studio experimenting with and performing new pieces in collaboration with Muziektheater Transparant, Antwerp, and Tapestry New Opera Works, Toronto, and for ENO Baylis recording excerpts of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice for an audio-visual educational project.

Over the last few years he has quite busy on the concert platform, the most of recent of which was a performance of Sullivan’s Cox and Box in the Crush Room at the Royal Opera House and one of Trial by Jury at Hever Castle for Opera Options. He also appeared as Admund (Die Hochzeit) and Erste Diener (Männerlist größer als Frauenlist) for ROH2 in a concert of “Wagner Rarities” in the Linbury Studio Theatre. His repertoire also includes Verdi’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore, Bach’s Magnificat and Handel’s Messiah.

Andrew is presently a member of the Royal Opera Chorus at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Although it is very much a full-time job he has also managed to become a founder member of Hous8, a vocal group from within the chorus and to cover a number of roles for the Royal Opera. These include Don Curzio, Count Lerma & Herald (Don Carlo), Master of Ceremonies (The Queen of Spades), Federico (Stiffelio), Borsa (Rigoletto), Second Nazarene (Salome), Pony Express Rider (La Fanciulla del West) and Parpignol.

Forthcoming work includes a performance of Haydn’s Mass in Time of War in Canterbury Cathedral.