Born in Liverpool, Nicholas Mulroy studied at Clare College Cambridge and Royal Academy of Music.
He regularly appears with leading ensembles throughout Europe, including Monteverdi Choir with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Les Musiciens du Louvre with Marc Minkowski, Les concerts d’Astrée with Emmanuelle Haïm, Gabrieli Consort with Paul McCreesh, and Dunedin Consort with John Butt, as well as concerts with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, Concerton Copenhagen, Koelner Akademie, Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Proms, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Wroclaw Philharmonic and Spitalfields Festival. Other conductors he has worked with include Laurence Cummings, Jordi Savall, Hans-Christoph Rademann, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Sir Mark Elder, Trevor Pinnock, Sir Colin Davis and Nicholas Kraemer.
On stage he has worked with Glyndebourne Festival Opera and on Tour, Opéra National de Paris, Royal Danish Opera, Théâtre Capitole de Toulouse and at the Opéra de Lille.
Recordings include a Gramophone Award-winning Messiah, Evangelist St Matthew Passion, Evangelist and arias St John Passion, and Acis Acis and Galatea for John Butt and Dunedin Consort (Linn), St John Passion for Stephen Layton and Polyphony (Hyperion), Monteverdi Vespers 1610 for Robert King and The King’s Consort on Hyperion, Monteverdi Vespers 1610 with Edward Higginbottom, a series of Monteverdi with I Fagiolini (Chandos), a disc of Michael Finnissy with EXAUDI and James Weeks (NMC), and projects with Theatre of the Ayre, English Baroque Soloists, and Mr McFall’s Chamber (Delphian).
In November 2020, he was appointed Associate Director of the Dunedin Consort, marking a new chapter in his nearly 20 years of collaboration with the ensemble.
This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.
Acis (Acis and Galatea)
UK tour, June 2022
[A]longside the evident wit and mischief, this was a wonderfully buoyant, tender account, and one full of authentic emotion – from the unforced directness of Redmond’s silvery Galatea to Dunedin Associate Director Nicholas Mulroy’s vulnerable, thoughtful Acis.
David Kettle, The Scotsman *****
The Academy of Ancient Music: St John Passion
Barbican, London 9th April 2022
Each of the nine soloists formed part of the expert 12-voice choir, including Nicholas Mulroy’s lyrically-sung Evangelist
Richard Fairman, The Financial Times
Bach's St Matthew Passion with the Dunedin Consort
Edinburgh, St Mary's Cathedral 9th April and London, Wigmore Hall 12th April 2022
...the sheer expressivity of [Mulroy's] singing was a thing of wonder here. Every phrase, every word was turned over carefully so as to heighten the storytelling. I’ve rarely heard an Evangelist that’s so well acted.
Simon Thompson, The Times*****
Mulroy, probably now the leading Evangelist of his generation, was outstanding. Vocally he still has the pure and affecting sound of his 2007 recording with the Dunedin Consort. But the interpretation has matured, with a freely expressive fervour in his narration, his singing both rapt and rapturous. His reluctant solo bow was met with a prolonged roar.
Roy Westbrook, Backtrack ***
How Lonely Sits the City (directing)
Online concert, November 2020
A pertinent and thoughtful recital meditates on isolation... if you’re after something to stimulate and soothe, a concert so thoughtfully programmed and lovingly presented that it’s almost as good as being back in the hall, then the Dunedin Consort have the answer... Probably best known for their Bach – crisp, energised, glossy – the Dunedins find a different touch here in their first performance under their newly-named Associated Director Nicholas Mulroy. Edges are softer, creating a lovely hazy glow, and there’s an organic, exploratory quality to the shaping and pacing.
Alexandra Coghlan, The Arts Desk
It’s a cathartic experience, one that faces down our current challenges, and transcends them, too, in impeccable, gloriously expressive performances. Conductor Nicholas Mulroy – recently appointed as Dunedin’s Associate Director – seems to have a miraculous gift of conjuring highly distinctive, individual sound worlds for each of the concert’s contrasting pieces – beautifully luminous and supple for the Lassus Lamentations that frame the performance; warm and resonant for Rudolf Mauersberger’s Brahmsian Wie liegt die Stadt so wüste; fiery and chiselled for James MacMillan’s powerful Miserere.
David Kettle, The Scotsman *****
The Dunedin has never sounded better, and that is a high bar to reach...The Cruttwell-Reade commission will surely quickly find a place in the repertoire...The singers’ clarity of diction here, and indeed throughout, was faultless.
Keith Bruce, Vox Carnyx
Handel's Messiah with RSNO
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, January 2020
The quartet of vocal soloists were each a joy to listen to. Tenor Nicholas Mulroy sang the opening recitative and aria with a light yet full tone
Miranda Heggie, Scottish Herald
Requiem Aeternam with the Dunedin Consort (directing)
November 2019
An exceptional evening of music directed by Nicholas Mulroy, deeply thoughtful, compassionate and nourishing…Mulroy is a respected tenor himself, and his direction was assured and expertly judged: at times he appeared to leave the singers to their own devices, while at others he goaded them with urgent gestures to ever greater expressivity
David Kettle, The Scotsman *****
Tenor-turned-conductor Nicholas Mulroy gave the thirteen-strong group an interestingly varied menu of “music of loss and consolation” to work with... the variety of tonal colour this group of singers blended to produce made an otherwise very full and often fascinating sound
Keith Bruce, The Herald ****
Handel: Chandos Te Deum & Chandos Anthem No 8
ONYX 4203, February 2019
The single voices combine harmoniously in contrapuntal choruses, and unaccompanied passages are shaded poignantly. Charles Daniels’s navigation of a stratospheric register interweaves deftly with Nicholas Mulroy’s soaring on the highest tenor parts... the relaxed sincerity of [Butterfield's] musicians yields revelatory new insights
David Vickers, Gramophone
The five vocal soloists are cohesive when singing together as a chorus and make distinctive contributions when taking the solo roles... Nicholas Mulroy projects a declamatory fervour, contrasting with Grace Davidson’s tender dialogue with an oboe and violins in ‘When though tookest upon thee’
Curtis Rogers, ClassicalSource ****
Adrian Butterfield has chosen a fine group of soloists...Charles Daniels and Nicholas Mulroy do not disappoint in the arias, and with the ensembles we never lose sight of individual voices either.
Planet Hugill, *****
Strozzi & Monteverdi with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Kings Place, January 2019
Mulroy made a fine Poet in Volgendo il Ciel, presiding over its ceremonials with elegant nobility
Tim Ashley, The Guardian ****
Sung with vibrant tone... Nicholas Mulroy did wonders with the high tessitura of the upper tenor part. [In Volgendo il ciel] Nicholas Mulroy was heroic in the poet's rhetorical verses with the chorus providing a lovely vibrant conclusion.
Planet Hugill, 4.5*
St John Passion (Evangelist) with Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota
Cathedral of Saint Paul & Ordway Concert Hall, November 2018
Saturday evening's St. Paul Chamber Orchestra performance of the Passion was one of the most satisfying you could hope to hear...The soloists were headed by the English tenor Nicholas Mulroy in the huge part of the Evangelist who relates the Passion story. Mulroy was an outstandingly sensitive narrator. He sang without a score, greatly enhancing his eye contact with both the audience and the other characters and adding a riveting immediacy to the storytelling.
Terry Blain, Star Tribune
Tenor Nicholas Mulroy proved a charismatic Evangelist, not only singing the expansive role of the work’s narrator from memory, but making him an engaged spectator to the story, whether underlining a sense of helplessness at the unfolding conflict or seemingly refereeing the argument between Jesus and Pontius Pilate.
Rob Hubbard, TwinCities.com
Handel's Messiah with RSNO
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 2nd January 2018
Tenor Nicholas Mulroy is arguably currently the perfect man to trust with the work’s opening recitative and aria, [with] his story-telling, perfectly enunciated, performance.
Keith Bruce, Herald Scotland *****
Nicholas Mulroy’s Discography
Discography |
Nicholas Mulroy’s Opera Repertoire
| BERLIOZ | Les Troyens (Iopas, Hylas) |
|---|---|
| BRITTEN | Billy Budd (Novice) |
| DONIZETTI | Don Pasquale (Ernesto) |
| HANDEL | Theodora (Septimius) |
| MONTEVERDI | L’Orfeo (Orfeo, Pastore) |
| MOZART | Magic Flute (Tamino, Monostatos) |
| POULENC | Les Dialogues des Carmélites (Le Chevalier) |
| PROKOFIEV | Betrothal in a Monastery (Novice) |
| RAMEAU | Castor et Pollux (Castor) |
| ROSSINI | La Cenerentola (Ramiro) |
| WEIR | A Night at the Chinese Opera (Tenor Actor) |
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