Stephen Varcoe

Stephen Varcoe was born in Cornwall. In his school years in Cambridge he sang there in the King's College Choir. In 1977 he won a scholarship from the Gulbenkian Foundation.Today Varcoe is looked upon as England's most versatile baritone. He has performed with success in the opera as well as in concert and is regarded as an accomplished lied singer. He appears regularly in Europe, the USA and in Asia. He is often to be heard performing Bach cantatas, songs from Schubert, and Victorian ballads. His musical repertoire is quite extensive and reaches into modern music. An area of emphasis, however, is compositions from the time of Bach and Händel.Varcoe's discography includes more than 100 recordings and shows his versatility: his productions extend from Purcell, Händel and Bach to Fauré, Holst and Richard Strauss. Stephen Varcoe has sung at music festivals in Hongkong, Barcelona, Flanders, Göttingen, Innsbruck, Lyon, and Copenhagen. He sings with orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the New Zealand Chamber Orchestra. Directors such as Frans Brüggen, John Eliot Gardiner, Trevor Pinnock, Sigiswald Kuijken, Neville Marriner, Roger Norrington and Joshua Rifkin count among his partners.