BBC Music Magazine and Classic FM ‘Rising Star’, Scottish tenor  Liam Bonthrone   makes major house and role debuts this season, including    Don Ramiro (La Cenerentola) for GöteborgsOperan, Jonathan (Saul) for Oper Köln, Lord Darnley /1st Male Courtier in the World Premiere of Brett Dean’s Of One Blood at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Pong (Turandot) for the Royal Ballet & Opera, Covent Garden,  and Brighella (Ariadne auf Naxos) in a new Laurent Pelly production at Glyndebourne Festival Opera. 

Liam recently  appeared at Royal Danish Opera: Il Conte d’Almaviva (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Potsdamer Winteroper: Rinaldo (Armida), Glyndebourne Festival Opera: Abner/High Priest/Amalekite/Doeg (Saul), and    Grail Knight  (Parsifal), and  Bayerische Staatsoper, where he was a member of the Opera Studio: performing roles  in the Nationaltheater including   Pedrillo (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Brighella (Ariadne auf Naxos),  Gaston/Victorin (Die tote Stadt), Le Remendado  (Carmen),  Gran Sacerdote (Idomeneo), Ein  Junger Seemann (Tristan und Isolde) and Rustighello  (Lucrezia Borgia). In the Cuvilliés Theater:  Der Erzähler (Der Mond - Orff), and the Münchner Kammerspiele in The Visitor (In the Penal Colony - Philip Glass). In 2024, he made his debut at Tiroler Winterfestspiele Erl, as Leshyi in Rimski-Korsakov’s Snegurotchka.

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As a concert soloist, recent performances include Gran Sacerdote in Mozart’s Idomeneo with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, and J.S. Bach St Matthew Passion with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. He  appeared at the  2025   Ludlow English Song Weekend with Iain Burnside, and the 80th Cheltenham Music Festival as tenor soloist in Berlioz’ Te Deum. With pianist Benjamin Mead, he has performed recitals in the UK, and at the Rhonefestival für Liedkunst  in Brig, Switzerland. This November, Liam and Benjamin  perform  ‘Stories as brittle as glass, at the 2025 Britten Weekend at Snape Maltings - a recital which he also gave with  Michael Pandya  at the Glenarm Festival of Voice in Northern Ireland,  broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Liam also collaborated  Side-by-side with the Prince Consort at the Wigmore Hall, and in Graham Johnson’s Song Guild at Milton Court.

Liam’s recordings include his debut solo album Soirée parisienne with pianist Benjamin Mead as part of the Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series on the LINN label, and also on the Delphian label; as tenor soloist in the recent release of Stainer: The Crucifixion, with the Choir and Organ of St. Mary’s Cathedral Edinburgh, and ensemble for Bernstein’s Candide, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop, in the Barbican Centre - released on LSO Live.

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 He is a recent alumnus of The Internationale Meistersinger Akademie, directed by Edith Wiens, a Samling Artist, and was as an Alvarez Young Artist with Garsington Opera.Liam was educated in the UK: a Bicentenary Scholar at Royal Academy Opera. He also holds a Masters of Performance with Distinction and a Concert Recital Diploma from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and a First Class Bachelor’s Degree in Music from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He won First Place in the 2022 Clonter Opera Prize.

Liam has participated in Masterclasses led by artists including Joyce DiDonato, Brigitte Fassbaender, Malcolm Martineau, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Ian Bostridge, Ann Murray, Edith Wiens, Helmut Deutsch and Roger Vignoles.

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Liam is grateful for the generous support and sponsorship of:

• Bicentenary Scholarship from RAM

• The Countess of Munster Musical Trust

• Help Musicians UK

• The Drake Calleja Trust

• The Caird Trust

• Dewar Arts Award

• The Cross Trust

• Jimmie Cairncross Charitable Trust

• Goldsmiths’ UK

• Thorntons Trust

Liam is represented by Nicki Wenham at Rayfield Allied.