Guildhall School of Music & Drama

William Thomas Bass

Recipient of Independent Opera Voice Scholarship 2019

Currently on the Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, British bass William Thomas is fast making a name for himself as one of today’s most promising young singers.

He is the recipient of a number of major awards including the 2019 Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition, the 2018 Kathleen Ferrier Award, the Royal Overseas League Singing Competition and the 2018 John Christie Award from Glyndebourne.

He has recently performed Bartok’s Cantata Profana with the London Symphony Orchestra under François-Xavier Roth, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Orchestre national de Lyon under Alan Gilbert and has made his Wigmore Hall debut as part of Graham Johnson’s Songmakers’ Almanac. As a Jerwood Young Artist he sang the role of Nicholas in the UK premiere of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa at the Glyndebourne Festival.

Future concert engagements include his solo recital debut at Wigmore Hall, Handel’s Messiah with the RTE Concert Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in Paris with Les Siècles. William makes his Vienna State Opera debut in 2019/20 as Snug A Midsummer Night’s Dream and will perform the role of Don Fernando in Fidelio with Garsington Festival Opera.

This biography was published in October 2019.