Matthew Brook is known for his honest and open portrayal of characters whether on the opera or concert stage. He leapt to fame with his 2007 Gramophone Award-winning recording of Handel’s Messiah with the Dunedin Consort, followed by equally critically acclaimed recordings of Acis and Galatea and St Matthew Passion. He has appeared as a soloist throughout Europe, Australia, North and South America and the Far East, and has worked with many of the world's leading conductors. He has developed a world-wide reputation for his interpretation of the music of J.S Bach and George Frederic Handel but his musical tastes stretch far beyond this, often performing new commissions.
Other concert repertoire he performs regularly include pieces such as Beethoven Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis, Berlioz L’Enfance du Christ, Brahms’ Requiem, Elgar Dream of Gerontius, Haydn Die Schöpfung and Die Jahreszeiten, Mendelssohn Elijah, Tippett A Child of Our Time and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast.
Matthew has enjoyed long collaborations with conductors including Sir Andrew Davis, Harry Bicket, Bernhard Labadie, Christophe Rousset, John Nelson, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, John Butt, Harry Christophers, Paul McCreesh and the late Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Roger Norrington and Richard Hickox. He has also collaborated with Richard Tognetti, Sir Mark Elder, Emmanuelle Haïm, Laurence Equilbey, Maxim Emelyanchev, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and Christian Curnyn.
In 2023 Matthew made his Opéra national de Paris debut performing the role of Il Re di Scozia in a new Robert Carsen production of Ariodante under Harry Bicket. He has performed roles at Staatstheater Stuttgart, Opera Comique, Göttingen International Handel Festival, The Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg and at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Some of Matthew’s roles have included Polyphemus Acis and Galatea, Aeneas Dido and Aeneas, Papageno Die Zauberflöte, Figaro Le nozze di Figaro, Leporello Don Giovanni, Kouno Der Freischütz, Garibaldo Rodelinda, Ned Keene Peter Grimes, Vicar Albert Herring, Noye Noye's Fludde, John Bunyan and Lord Hategood in Vaughan Williams's The Pilgrim’s Progress, Melchior in Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, Jupiter in Rameau’s Castor et Pollux, Starek and Mayor Jenufa, Antenor and Calkas in Walton’s Troilus and Cressida, Zuniga Carmen, Argenio Imeneo, Claudio Agrippina and Seneca in L’incoronazione di Poppea. He assumed the roles of Don Alfonso and Bartolo under Sir John Elliott Gardiner as part of a big European tour including at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Salle Pleyel, Paris, Teatro Real, Madrid and Giuseppe Verdi Opera House, Pisa.
Matthew has an extensive discography resulting in many nominations and awards including several Gramophone awards for the music of Handel and Bach and a Grammy nomination for the Mozart Requiem. His recent recording Bach: Ich habe genug with the Dunedin Consort for the Linn label won the choral award in the 2022 BBC Music Magazine Awards. Some other recording highlights include, Handel’s Ariodante with Joyce DiDonato and Il Complesso Barocco for the Erato label under Alan Curtis, Idomeneo with the late Sir Charles Mackerras for EMI, and Counsel Trial By Jury and Friar Tuck in Sullivan’s Ivanhoe with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for Chandos records. He is also soloist for a BBC television recording of Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ under the late Richard Hickox.
Future releases will include a new recording of Handel’s Messiah with John Nelson, the English Concert and Choir and a recording of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with David Bates and La Nuova Musica.
Recent highlights include the role of Aeneas in the world premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s Dido’s Ghost co-commissioned by the Dunedin Consort with the Barbican Centre, Edinburgh International Festival, Buxton International Festival and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale, a return to the Edinburgh International Festival for a special performance of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with Maxim Emelyanchev and the SCO, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic under Vasily Petrenko.
This season, Matthew makes his debut with Opera North in David Poutney’s “Masque of Might”, music by Purcell, conducted by Harry Bicket, returns to Grange Park Opera, and gives performances with the Czech Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Philharmonia Baroque, Handel and Haydn Society Boston and closer to home with the Academy of Ancient Music, English Concert, Dunedin Consort, The Hallé and Royal Northern Sinfonia to name a few.
This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.
Schumann Das Paradies Und Die Peri, Royal Northern Sinfonia
The Glasshouse (April 2024)
The top-notch team of soloists set the seal on a terrific collective effort… Matthew Brook’s mellifluous bass.
Simon Thompson, The Times*****
Bach St Matthew Passion (Christus), Dunedin Consort
The Queen’s Hall Edinburgh (March 2024)
Matthew Brook’s Jesus is an interpretation for the ages (as affirmed recently by David Nice in reviewing a superlative Dublin Matthew Passion). It’s hard to imagine the part more sympathetically or beautifully sung: he sang with agony in the garden and even a touch of heroism before Caiphas, and overall it’s an interpretation brimming with empathy and humanity. He brought all those qualities to deeply moving performances of the last two bass arias, too.
Simon Thompson, The Arts Desk*****
Bach St Matthew Passion (Christus), Irish Baroque Orchestra
(March 2024)
It was theatrically of a piece with the intensity of Matthew Brook – no haloed icon of a Christus, but an anguished human being also conveying the fullest emotional range, and ending with such tenderness, joy and compassion in “Mache dich, mein Herze, rein”. The emotional culmination of the epic came in his supremely powerful “Eli, Eli, lama Sabathani?
David Nice, The Arts Desk*****
CD Recording: Handel Messiah, The English Concert and John Nelson (Erato 5419774160)
(November 2023)
Bass Matthew Brook has great presence as always in his wide-ranging numbers
Lindsay Kemp, Gramophone
CD Recording: Purcell Dido and Aeneas, La Nuova Musica (Pentatone)
(September 2023)
The recording … with Fleur Barron as Dido and Matthew Brook as Aeneas…sizzles with energy.
Berta Joncus, BBC Music Magazine****
Matthew Brook’s Trojan prince is rightly portrayed not just with an air of importance but with chutzpah, which I found quite fitting given the events that follow.
Azusa Ueno, The Classical Review
Purcell Masque of Might (Sceptic, Samuel)
Opera North (October 2023)
…outstandingly stylish singing especially by … Matthew Brook as Samuel
Nicholas Kenyon, The Telegraph
It’s a smash hit… both Xavier Hetherington and Matthew Brook relished their various roles.
Melanie Eskenazi, MusicOMH
Both Matthew Brook and Andri Björn Róbertsson made strong baritone contributions in a variety of cameos.
Martin Dreyer, Opera Magazine
…profoundly moving prison scene with Hetherington and Brook using O, I'm sick of life leading to the chorus' striking rendition of Hear my prayer, O Lord.
Robert Hugill, Planet Hugill
Mozart The Magic Flute (Speaker of the Temple/1st Priest/2nd Armed Man), Edinburgh International Festival
(August 2023)
Matthew Brook made a terrifically authoritative Speaker.
Simon Thompson, The Times
Matthew Brook … intoned impressively in the temple scenes
Andrew Clark, Opera Magazine
Handel Ariodante (Il Re di Scozia), Opéra national de Paris
Palais Garnier (April 2023)
... a remarkable partner in the person of bass-baritone Matthew Brook in the paternal role (the King). Through his voice, his way of inhabiting the space, it exudes royal dignity and juggles with a rich expressive palette: bonhomie, joy, touching paternal love, despair or inflexible rigor.
Georgiana Hatara, Bachtrack
Then we become acquainted with a King of Scotland of solid maturity (Matthew Brook)
Jean-Luc Clairet, ResMusica
Matthew Brook embodies a King of Scotland of great nobility, with powerfully projected bass.
Yves Jauneau, Forum Opera
The King of Scotland is performed with wise authority by bass-baritone Matthew Brook , whose timbre is justly noble.
Emmanuel Deroeux, Olyrix
Matthew Brook, in the role of the King, portrays a father who is both severe but loving, very hieratic and solemn.
Nathanaël Eskenazy, Première Loge
His father (Matthew Brook), with an impressive presence, paints a noble, jovial and human portrait of the King of Scotland. Agile (what vocalizations!), nuanced, masterful throughout its range.
Benedict Palaux Simonnet, Crescendo Magazine
Handel Messiah, The English Concert & John Nelson
Coventry Cathedral (November 2022)
Matthew Brook’s brilliantly delivered solo (his ‘The Trumpet Shall Sound’)…The bass Matthew Brook was another singer who managed Handel’s perilous semiquaver melismas perfectly (the ‘shake’ passages in ‘This saith the Lord of hosts’, and in ‘Why do the nations so furiously rage together?’)!
Colin Clarke, Seen and Heard International
Bach Mass in B minor, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, BBC Prom 57
Royal Albert Hall (August 2022)
…much of the performance radiated an uplifting sense of joy. Among the soloists… Matthew Brook an effective bass
Richard Fairman, Financial Times****
Behind the warmly authoritative bass-baritone of Matthew Brook in Quoniam tu solus sanctus, Roger Montgomery’s horn solo proved tender, yearning, wistful… The trumpet-enriched Et resurrexit leapt into thrillingly new life, and Brook’s Et in Spiritum Sanctum had an ardent serenity that mixed well with Katharina Spreckelsen’s beautifully coloured oboe solo.
Boyd Tonkin, The Arts Desk****
Matthew Brook Opera Repertoire
| Bernstein | A Quiet Place (Young Sam) |
|---|---|
| Bizet | Carmen (Zuniga) |
| Britten | Albert Herring (Vicar) |
| Handel | Acis and Galatea (Polyphemus) |
| Janáček | Jenufa (Starek) (Mayor) |
| Menotti | Amahl and the Night Visitors (Melchior) |
| Monteverdi | L'incoronazione di Poppea (Seneca) |
| Mozart | Don Giovanni (Leporello) |
| Purcell | Dido and Aeneas (Aeneas) |
| Puccini | Tosca (Sacristan) |
| Rameau | Anacréon (Anacréon) |
| Sullivan | Trial by Jury (Counsel) |
| Tchaikovsky | Eugene Onegin (Onegin) (Zaretsky) |
| Vaughan Williams | The Pilgrim’s Progress (John Bunyan) (Lord Hategood) (Watchful)(Obstinate) and (First Shepherd) |
| Walton | Troilus and Cressida (Antenor, Calkas) |
| Weber | Der Freischütz (Kuno) |
Matthew Brook Concert Repertoire
| Bach | Magnificat including interpolations |
|---|---|
| JC Bach | Wie bist du den O Gott |
| Buxtehude | Jesu membra nostre |
| Beethoven | Mass in C |
| Berlioz | L’Enfance du Christ (all bass/baritone roles) |
| Blow | God spake sometime in visions |
| Blake | Benedictus |
| Brahms | Liebeslieder Waltzes |
| Britten | Cantata Misericordium |
| Burgon | The fall of Lucifer |
| Carissimi | Jephte |
| Charpentier | Caecilia Virgo |
| Dvorak | Mass in D |
| Dyson | Canterbury Pilgrims |
| Elgar | Apostles |
| Faure | Requiem |
| Finzi | In terra pax |
| Grieg | Four Psalms |
| Grier | Around the curve of the world |
| Handel | Acis and Galatea |
| Haydn | Creation |
| Howells | Requiem |
| Janacek | Glagolitic Mass |
| Joubert | The Magus |
| Kodaly | Te Deum |
| Maunder | Olivet to Calvary |
| Mendelssohn | Elijah |
| Mozart | Missa Brevis |
| Monteverdi | Vespers |
| Nielsen | Symphony No. 3 |
| Purcell | In guilty night |
| Anthony Powers | Air and Angels |
| Puccini | Messe di Gloria |
| Rameau | In convertendo |
| Rossini | Stabat Mater |
| Stainer | Crucifixion |
| Schütz | Christmas Story |
| Stravinsky | Canticum Sacrum |
| Tippett | A child of our time |
| Vaughan Williams | Benedicite |
| Walton | Belshazzar’s Feast |
These photos are available to be downloaded.
Right click on a desired image and select the "Save Link As" option.
