Countertenor, Randall Scotting has become a sought–after artist by some of the world’s most esteemed opera houses. In 2019 he made a spectacular debut at the Royal Opera House as Apollo in Britten’s Death in Venice, singing to sold–out audiences at Covent Garden, and immediately after he joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera. A dramatically persuasive and intensely musical interpreter, he is recognized for winning over audiences with his stunning vocal beauty, stylish singing, and charismatic stage presence. As the lead role of the Refugee in Jonathan Dove’s Flight at Seattle Opera in 2021, a performance for which he was highly praised in the press, Musical America noted Randall to be ‘marvelous’ with a ‘plangent, rich–toned instrument’. He made his Bayerische Staatsoper debut in 2022 as the role of Michael in the groundbreaking modern opera Thomas by Georg Friedrich Haas. His debut solo album, The Crown: Heroic Arias for Senesino with Laurence Cummings conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, received widespread international praise: ‘ravishing vocalism... this recording captures his dramatic artistry’ (BBC Music Magazine); ‘Scotting’s full, darkly mellifluous voice – smooth and even throughout its range, with a resonant lower register – is well suited to these amorous outpourings’ (Gramophone); ‘If charismatically sung baroque opera arias are your thing, Randall Scotting is your man’ (Limelight).
Randall’s past engagements have linked him with major US and European opera houses, orchestras, and venues, including the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Santa Fe Opera, Carnegie Hall, Edinburgh’s Saint Cecilia’s Hall, Italy’s Spoleto Festival, the Göttingen Handel Festival, Boston Baroque, the New York Philharmonic, and many others. He has also been featured singing the music of JC Bach and speaking about the young Mozart on the BBC documentary Mozart’s London Odyssey. Operatic roles for which he has received acclaim include the leads in Handel’s Rinaldo, Orlando, and Giulio Cesare; Gluck’s Orfeo; and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Alongside more traditional repertoire, Randall plunges headfirst into all manner of musical genres, regularly singing art song, new commissions, and even cabaret. He has performed in staged versions of Xenakis’ The Oresteia, Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King, and Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. Randall trained at the Royal College of Music in London, the Juilliard School in New York, and as a Fulbright Scholar at the Liszt Academy in Budapest.
He made his leading operatic debut at Spoleto’s Festival dei due mondi in Vivaldi’s Ercole su’l Termodonte with the ensemble Il Complesso Barocco (also released on DVD). Randall can be heard on other recordings as the soloist in a modern cantata for chorus and countertenor entitled Dive: A Water Music and as the title role in Antonio Caldara’s oratorio Santo Stefano primo re dell’Ungheria. In 2023, he will also release an album of love duets and arias from 17th– century Venice with the Academy of Ancient Music. Remarkably tall with a uniquely muscular build, he breaks the familiar countertenor mold with his warm, full, and resonant sound, defying stereotypes and setting a new standard in the voice part.

Three decades ago, a group of London musicians took a good look at that curious institution we call the orchestra, and decided to start again from scratch. They began by throwing out the rulebook. Put a single conductor in charge? No way. Specialise in repertoire of a particular era? Too restricting. Perfect a work and then move on? Too lazy. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was born.

Since then, the OAE has shocked, changed and mesmerised the music world. Residencies at the Southbank Centre and Glyndebourne haven’t numbed its experimentalist bent. Record deals haven’t ironed out its quirks. Period-specific instruments have become just one element of its quest for authenticity.

Today the OAE is cherished more than ever. It still pushes for change, and still stands for excellence, diversity and exploration. And almost three decades on, there’s still no orchestra in the world quite like it.

© Andrew Mellor