Sam Furness, Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Orchestra & Gavin Carr
Biographie Sam Furness, Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Orchestra & Gavin Carr
Sam Furness
Described as having “all the makings of a star” in The Guardian and hailed as “a lyric tenor clearly going places” in Opera Magazine, tenor Sam Furness has sung major roles for Scottish Opera, Garsington Opera, and the Teatro Real, Madrid, always earning praise for his compelling acting and innate musicality.
In the 2025/26 season, he returns to Teatro Real Madrid to sing Lysander in a new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. On the concert platform, he performs with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in A Night at the Opera, featuring operatic classics by Puccini, Verdi, and Gershwin.
Recent engagements include Tchekalinsky in The Queen of Spades (Garsington Opera), Kudryas in Katya Kabanova (Glyndebourne, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Grand Théâtre de Genève, National Theater Brno), Acis in Acis and Galatea (Potsdamer Winteroper), “Hold Your Breath”, a new commission by Éna Brennan, for the Bregenzer Festspiele, directed by David Pountney, and "Awakening – A Cycle of Hope" by Paul Carr with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Andres in Wozzeck (Royal Opera House), Tybalt in Roméo et Juliette (Savonlinna Opera Festival), Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana and Beppe in Pagliacci (Åbo Svenska Teater, Turku), Pang in Turandot (Grand Théâtre de Genève), Albert Gregor in The Makropoulos Case (Opernhaus Zürich), White King/Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), Rodolphe in Guillaume Tell (Theater an der Wien), Glass Maker in Death in Venice (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), Lensky in Eugene Onegin (La Monnaie Brussels, Garsington Opera, Royal Academy Opera, Ryedale Festival), Novice in Billy Budd (Royal Opera House, Teatro Real Madrid, Teatro Municipal Santiago), Simpleton in Boris Godunov (Royal Opera House), Vitek in The Makropulos Case (Grand Théâtre de Genève, Vlaanderen Opera), Kavalier in Cardillac (Vlaanderen Opera), the title role in Albert Herring (Opera di Firenze, Opera Holland Park, Théâtre du Capitôle Toulouse), Don José in Carmen (Jyväskylä Opera), Tamino in Die Zauberflöte (Turku Music Festival), Hoffmann in Les contes d’Hoffmann (English Touring Opera), Jaquino in Fidelio (Garsington Opera, Philharmonie de Paris), Peter Quint/Prologue in The Turn of the Screw (Northern Ireland Opera), Števa in Jenůfa (Scottish Opera), The Diary of One Who Disappeared (Shadwell Opera), and roles in Capriccio (Flamand), Intermezzo (Baron Lummer), Gaspar in the world premiere of David Sawer’s The Skating Rink, and Jack in the world premiere of Roxanna Panufnik’s Silver Birch (all for Garsington Opera).
On the concert platform, he has recently sung Verdi's Requiem with the Hallé, Dvořák's Requiem with St Alban's Bach Choir, Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore and Mass in C Minor with Hertfordshire Chorus in St Alban’s Cathedral, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and his oratorio and concert repertoire includes Mozart’s Requiem, Bach’s St Matthew Passion and St John Passion, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Handel’s Messiah and Samson, Britten’s St Nicholas and Les Illuminations, Verdi’s Requiem, and Dyson’s Canterbury Pilgrims.
His oratorio and concert repertoire includes Mozart’s Requiem, Bach’s St Matthew Passion and St John Passion, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Handel’s Messiah and Samson, Britten’s St Nicholas and Les Illuminations, Verdi’s Requiem, and Dyson’s Canterbury Pilgrims.
Gavin Carr
conducts extensively throughout the UK and Europe, working with leading orchestras and choruses in major venues. Chorus Master of the Philharmonia Chorus and Chorus Director of the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, he collaborates with many of the world’s leading arts organisations and soloists. He has guest conducted the BBC Symphony Chorus and the London Symphony Chorus, and is Founder-Director of Chorus Angelorum, his elite professional choir, with whom he has recorded the choral works of Paul Carr. In 2024 he was appointed Choral Director of the new ChoralFest at Dartington Hall, and his Hiroshima War Requiem project is making waves in the choral world. Establishing himself as a conductor twenty years ago after an international career as a baritone, he has conducted ensembles such as the English Chamber Orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Bremen Philharmoniker and the Symphony Orchestra of India in a remarkably wide repertoire, from Mahler’s 8th Symphony, Britten’s War Requiem, the Passions of J S Bach, and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, to Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera. A crucial part of his repertoire is commissioning and promoting major new works such as Blackford’s Not in our Time and Pietá, and Paul Carr’s Awakening, Seven Last Words from the Cross and Requiem for an Angel. A member of the Vocal Faculty at London's Royal Academy of Music, he teaches some of the brightest vocal talent in the world. His first career as a baritone with international experience across a huge range of repertoire nurtures his work as conductor of major symphony choruses, and he is regarded as one of Europe's leading specialists in this field.
