Name Glenn Kesby | Role Musical Artist | |
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Glenn Kesby (born 26 September 1970) is an Australian countertenor, specialising in baroque music.
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Opera
Glenn Kesby made his professional singing debut at the 25th Handel Festival in Karlsruhe, Germany, where he played Adelberto in Ottone, conducted by Charles Farncombe CBE. Since then, he has played several lead Handel opera roles including Julius Caesar and Ruggiero in Alcina for the Handel Opera Society, Rinaldo at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London, and most recently Apollo in Parnasso in Festa with Baroque Encounter at St. John's, Smith Square.
Other opera roles have included Silvio in Handel's Il Pastor Fido (Harmonie Universelle), Cupid in John Blow's Venus and Adonis, Spirit in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (Burghley Opera), Tolomeo in Julius Caesar, Arsamenes in Xerxes, Polinesso in Ariodante, and Venus in Pepusch's Venus and Adonis for the Handel House Museum.
Concerts and oratorio
Kesby was a soloist for the modern-world premiere performance of the rediscovered Mozart orchestration of Handel's Judas Maccabaeus for John Pryce-Jones and the Halifax Choral Society, broadcast on BBC TV (UK) and on Trio Arts Channel (USA).
His other concerts have included Handel's Messiah with the Halifax Choral Society, and also with Choros and the Oxford Sinfonia, Purcell's Come Ye Sons of Art and Mozart's Coronation Mass for the Queen's Golden Jubilee at St. Alban's Cathedral, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Rye Festival, post-Restoration music at the Chelsea Festival, Lute songs at Hampton Court Palace, Handel's Dixit Dominus, Bach's Missa Brevis in G minor and Purcell's Welcome to all the Pleasures at the Shipton Festival.
Baroque encounter
In 2004, he set up his own early music ensemble, Baroque Encounter, to stage lesser known baroque repertoire in full period costume in a style similar to the original performances.
Other
Kesby is a regular concert artist at London's Handel House Museum, and with the Artemis and Hanbarne baroque ensembles. He has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and overseas in Germany, Hungary, Cyprus, Ireland, France and his native Australia. Now permanently settled in Britain, he is the recipient of a Tait Memorial Trust Scholarship to continue his studies with Mary King.