Winner of the 2024 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Scottish tenor Matthew McKinney is quickly establishing himself as an exciting and sensitive young singer.
He recently made his debut at Carnegie hall as a Song Studio Artist, and he looks forward to returning to Glyndebourne in summer 2025 as a Jerwood Young Artist.
In the Autumn, he will make his role debut there as Peter in the world premier of Mark Anthony Turnage’s new opera The Railway Children.
He spent summer 2024 at Glyndebourne Festival as a chorister, before returning to English Touring Opera, where he performed Beethoven’s An Die Ferne Geliebte as part of the newly compiled work Do Not Take My Story for a Fairy Tale.
He also covered the Tsar in a new English translation of Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden. Before this, he recorded Gastone La traviata (OperaGlass Works) and Rodolfo La bohème on Robin Norton-Hale’s forthcoming feature produced by Finite Films.
Other operatic roles include Damon Acis & Galatea for Ryedale Festival in 2022 and covering Henrik A Little Night Music at Opera North, having sung the role for Buxton International Festival in 2021.
In 2023 he sang Luigino Il viaggio a Reims and Rustighello Lucrezia Borgia in new productions for ETO.
As a concert soloist, performances include Bach St John Passion, Handel Messiah, Haydn Creation, Mendelssohn Elijah, Mozart Requiem, Puccini Messe Di Gloria (The Orchestra of Scottish Opera), Macmillan All the Hills and Vales Along. April 2025 will see him debut as a step out soloist for the Dunedin Consort’s tour of Bach’s St Matthew Passion.
Following the success of the Ferrier, Matthew has established himself as an accomplished recitalist. Alongside his duo partner Roelof Temmingh, they have curated a programme called ‘Finding Freedom’, which merges the traditional recital format with small, personal innovations. They will perform this around the UK and Ireland. Cities and towns include London (Bechstein Hall), Glasgow (RCS and Westbourne Music Festival), Cambridge, Oxford, Devon (Whiddon Autumn Festival) and Cornwall. Matthew and Roelof are thrilled to have the opportunity to further explore their deep love of song repertoire.
Matthew is a graduate of The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he was gratefully supported by the Robertson Trust, John Mather Rising Star scholarship, Help Musicians (Ian Fleming) Award, Sir James Caird Travelling Scholarship, WFT Anderson Scholarship, The Underwood Trust Scholarship and The Dale Scholarship. While studying, he was taught by Professor Stephen Robertson. Matthew now studies with Robert Dean and has regular coaching with Jane Robinson and Nicky Spence.
Alongside his growing career as a soloist, Matthew has a passion for community music and music outreach. Over the years Matthew has loved conducting community choirs, touring new opera for children around England, helping run interactive music workshops for toddlers, and being a part of charity organisations like Streetwise Opera. He hopes to continue growing this part of his career for as long as he works. He feels this is a core part of who he is as a singer and musician.