Sir Willard White Biography
Sir Willard is famed for his enormous, rich voice and powerful stage presence.
Born in Jamaica, he
commenced his musical training at the Jamaican School
of Music and then went on to the Juilliard School
in New York.
Since making his debut with the New York City Opera he has sung regularly at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; the Metropolitan Opera, New York; the English National Opera, San Francisco; the Opera Houses of Munich, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Geneva, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Madrid, Paris, and at the Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg Festivals.
Willard's huge repertoire includes the bass-baritone roles in operas by John Adams, Bartok, Monteverdi, Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Debussy, Shostakovich, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and Gershwin.
Willard is also much in demand
for concerts and recitals throughout Europe, the USA
and in the Far East. He sings regularly with
the world's major conductors and orchestras, including the London Symphony,
London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Hallé, Royal Philharmonic, Concertgebouw, La
Scala, Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles
Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestras and he has appeared as soloist many times
at the BBC Proms, including the Last Night of the Proms, the Proms
in the Park and A Child of our Time at the First
Night of the Proms.
Willard White was awarded the CBE in 1995 and he was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2004.
