Stephen Whitford is a dynamic baritone who excels in comic roles and contemporary music. He is an Opera Prelude Young Artist, and was a Britten-Pears Young Artist. He was a prize-winner in the Hurn Court Singer of the Year, Patricia Routledge Prize and Courtney  Kenny Award, and a finalist or semi-finalist in the Wigmore Hall/Bollinger International  Song Competition, the John Kerr Award and the Charles Wood Song Competition. Stephen speaks German, Italian and English. He has performed on BBC Radio and TV and appeared on some fifteen CD releases, both as soloist and chorister. 

Recent operatic highlights include Dandini in Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Hurn Court  Opera), and Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller in the European premiere of Gregory Spears’ Fellow Travelers (UCOpera). Other roles include Belcore (L’elisir d’amore), Don Giovanni, Marcello (La Bohème), Derrick (Rip van Winkle) and Louis (The Wandering Scholar, Holst). He covered Dr. Falke (Die Fledermaus) and sang Servo (La Traviata), both with The Grange Festival. In 2022, Stephen sang Kerel for the première of Linton-France’s Episoden von K. und G. in Vienna’s Schönbrunner Schloßtheater (Beethoven Ensemble). 

Stephen also has a special affinity for art song, with a busy programme of recitals across the country. He was invited by Gweneth Ann Rand and Simon Lepper to join them in a recital of French Song in the Aldeburgh Festival 2024 and sang a concert of Brahms and  Schumann in Vienna’s Musikverein. On the oratorio platform, he has sung the title role in  Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Handel’s Messiah and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem. 

Stephen has studied at the University for Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, the Royal  Academy of Music, London and King’s College, Cambridge, and among his teachers were Florian Boesch, Nuccia Focile, Joy Mammen, Joseph Middleton, Jonathan Papp and  Sebastian Vittucci. He continues his vocal studies with Sophie Grimmer.