Russell Harcourt - counter tenor
Sydney born counter tenor Russell Harcourt studied voice at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Graham Pushee and Dr. Rowena Cowley and at the Royal Academy of Music with Joy Mammen and Jonathan Papp.
He has been an associate of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden since 2008. He has performed in master classes for Emma Kirkby, Michael Chance, Andreas Scholl, Rosalind Plowright and Yvonne Kenny and he is an alumnus of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programmme.
Prizes and scholarships include Hariclea Darclée Special Award for Excellence, The Sir Robert Askin Operatic Travelling Scholarship, Tait Memorial Trust Grant, Australian Music Foundation Awards, Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant, Australia Council for the Arts Skills and Arts Development Grant and the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship.
Russell Harcourt made his operatic debut in 2007 as Oberon A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. His roles at the Royal Academy of Music include Athamas Semele with Sir Charles Mackerras and Volano Il Giasone with Jane Glover. He made his Australian concert debut in 2009 as a guest artist at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music and made his Royal Opera House debut this year in the Deloitte Ignite series. His oratorio experience include alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah, Judas Maccabaeus, Israel in Egypt and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms.
He has covered Fox/Coachman in The Adventures of Pinocchio for Opera North, Armindo in Partenope for Opera Australia, and Zelim in Vivaldi’s La Verita in Cimento for the Garsington Opera Festival. Recent concerts include the alto solos in St Matthew Passion at both the Melbourne Recital Hall and for the Leicester Bach Choir.
Future engagements include Corrado in Vivaldi's Griselda for Pinchgut Opera in Sydney.