Ed Ballard

www.edballard.co.uk

Edward Ballard studied at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he won the Marjorie Thomas Art Song Prize, the Elena Gerhardt Lieder Prize, the Grabowski Connell Prize and the Douglas Samuel & Birdie Matthews Award.

Since graduating he has played the title role in Macbeth by Luke Styles for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, with performances in the Jerwood Studio at Glyndebourne and at the Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House, the title role in Massenet’s Werther (1902 baritone version) for English Touring Opera, Pandolfe in Massenet's Cendrillon for Theater Freiburg and Nick Shadow III/cover Nick Shadow for the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.

Future plans include Marco in Gianni Schicchi, cover Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro and Shackleton in Shackleton's Cat for English Touring Opera, concerts with Sounds Baroque and Opera Prelude and competition appearances in Europe.

Previous roles include; for Royal Academy Opera, Tarquinius in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia and Pandolfe in Massenet's Cendrillon; for British Youth Opera, Truffaldino in Jonathan Dove’s The Little Green Swallow and cover Chao Lin in Judith Weir’s A Night at the Chinese Opera; for Dartington, Aeneas in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas; for the Edinburgh Fringe, Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other roles include Guglielmo in Così fan Tutte, Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, Marcello in La Boheme, Mother/Brother in Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins and David in Barber's A Hand of Bridge.

In concert, Ed has appeared at the Royal Albert Hall, the Cadogan Hall, St John’s Smith Square, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Kings Place and King’s College Chapel amongst others. Whilst at the Royal Academy of Music, he was a soloist in the acclaimed Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Cantata Series and was a member of the Royal Academy of Music Song Circle, with whom he made his Wigmore Hall debut.

Ed is immensely grateful for the support, past and present, of the Maidment Scholarship and two Sybil Tutton Opera Awards administered by Help Musicians UK, an International Opera Awards Foundation Bursary, a Howard de Walden Award, Carr-Gregory Scholarship and Clumber Studio Scholarship administered by the Royal Academy of Music, The Lady Clare Fund, The Kathleen Trust, The John Wates Charitable Trust, Ollie Strachan and Claire Wills, The Josephine Baker Trust, and for scholarships to Dartington International Summer School and The North Sea Vocal Academy in Denmark.

Born in London, Ed began singing at the Temple Church and was as a Choral Scholar in Clare College Choir and King’s College Choir in Cambridge, where he read History. He was a featured soloist on the 2009 BBC Television Broadcast of ‘Carols from King’s’.