One of the UK’s most sought-after baritones, Roderick is constantly in demand on the concert platform and in recital, whether in great opera halls or on the concert stage. He has performed major roles at Royal Opera House Covent Garden, English National Opera, Dutch National Opera, Dallas Opera, the Bregenz Festival and Oper Köln, amongst many more.

Born in London to a Welsh father and a Jamaican mother Roderick grew up in Barnet. There was much music-making at home, and it was an environment that encouraged his musical development. He explained to The Guardian “I was very lucky, almost blissfully unaware how fortunate I was to be part of a stable, loving family, with two parents, two brothers – I’m the middle one – and lots of music-making.”

He began his career as a classroom music teacher, which he enjoyed. However, it was seeing friends perform as singers, and ultimately a suggestion from his wife during his late twenties that he decided to consider a career in singing. He says, “I joined the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, on the opera course there, and suddenly a career in opera beckoned”.

His recital programmes often feature repertoire by British composers, including many new works, and his recorded legacy is extensive. He has recorded Vaughan Williams, Berkeley and Britten operas for Chandos, and an extensive repertoire of English song with pianist Iain Burnside for Naxos. He has also recorded his own arrangement of Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad and other English repertoire with the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder, also for Chandos. In 2016 he won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Singer of the Year award, and in June 2017 was awarded an OBE for services to music.

Roderick is also an established composer and has recently taken up the role of Composer in Association for BBC Singers. He describes his beginnings as a composer saying “I’ve always composed since I was a boy, with my brothers or my family. It was usually for an occasion. You write and arrange music for the people in front of you.”

He famously sang Walford-Davies’s Confortare, arranged by John Rutter, at the coronation of King Charles III – and composed a piece for the momentous occasion. He said “Being a part of such an extraordinary, momentous occasion was a career and personal highlight…. I remember wandering around the streets outside the Abbey in the days beforehand and the atmosphere was so strange; joyous and exhilarating but a bit other-worldly too!”

Join Roderick Williams for performances on 8 Oct (Lighthouse, Poole), 9 Oct (Exeter University Great Hall), 29 Apr (Lighthouse, Poole) and 13 May (Lighthouse, Poole).