Stephen Varcoe

Christopher Stephen Varcoe ( born May 19, 1949 in Lostwithiel / Cornwall ) is an English classical singer ( bass-baritone ).

Varcoe visited the Canterbury Cathedral Choir School, Canterbury 's King 's School and studied at King's College, where he sang in the King's College Choir under David Willcocks. In 1977 he received a scholarship from the Gulbenkian Foundation.

Varcoe joined, among others with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the New Zealand Chamber Orchestra and the Hanover Band and worked with conductors such as Frans Brüggen, John Eliot Gardiner, Richard Hickox, Christian Lindberg, Charles Mackerras, Jean -Claude Malgoire, Marc Minkowski, Arnold Östman, Trevor Pinnock, Joshua Rifkin, Gennadi Roshdestvensky Yan Pascal Tortelier and

As an opera singer stepped et al Varcoe in Joseph Haydn's L' Infedelta Delusa in Antwerp, Claude Debussy's Fall of The House of Usher in Lisbon and London, John Tavener's Mary Of Egypt at the Aldeburgh Festival, Jacopo Peri's Euridice at the Drottningholm Festival, Gustav Holst's Savitri, Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night 's Dream and Rimsky -Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri on.

As a recitalist, he has given recitals of works by Gerald Finzi and Arthus Sommervell with pianist Ian Burnside, by Franz Schubert ( Winter Journey ) with Eugene Asti and with Graham Johnson, Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann and Hugo Wolf with Johnson and Percy Grainger Penelope Thwaites.

Varcoe took on some 130 CDs. He sang works by Purcell, Handel and Bach under John Eliot Gardiner, Richard Hickox and Sigiswald Kuijken, by Mozart under Neville Marriner, Fauré under John Rutter, Holst under Richard Hickox, Richard Strauss under Roger Norrington, by Arnold Schoenberg with Robert Craft and Igor Stravinsky conducted by Robert Craft.