“… a singer to watch… he has an excellent voice, strong, even and flexible, with a rich tone and an apparently effortless gift of characterisation.” – Sunday Post
Biography – Serious
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Welsh-Irish baritone Phil Gault has performed internationally, in roles ranging from Don Giovanni and King Roger, to the Count, Dandini, King Roger, Escamillo, and even Carmen in the critically acclaimed all-male CarMen.
He has performed with Scottish Opera, Opera North, Heritage Opera, Buxton Festival Opera, Northampton Festival Opera, and Secret Opera, is principal baritone for Opera on a Shoestring, co-founded Black Sheep Opera, and is a Samling and a Crear artist. Other rôles include Nabucco, Tarquinius, Junius, Nick Shadow, Angelotti, Morales, El Dancaïro, and Chao Lin (A Night at the Chinese Opera).
Phil has performed recitals in the Usher Hall, the Wales Millennium Centre, the Riverfront Centre and Paxton House, and is an aLuMNus of Yehudi Menuhin’s Live Music Now! scheme. His song repertory includes Dichterliebe, Chansons Gaillardes, Songs of Travel, Italienisches Liederbuch, and A Shropshire Lad, and his oratorio repertoire ranges from Carmina Burana and A Sea Symphony to the Bach Passions and cantatas, in venues from the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and the Usher Hall, to the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford.
TV includes live broadcast recordings of the title roles in the award nominated Macbeth and Barbwr Sefil with Opra Cymru, and audio includes Breathe Freely (Wagstaff), A Brontë Mass (Wilby), and A Breathless Alleluia (Wilby), the latter two with the Black Dyke Band.
Biography- Light
If you are planning to use this for a programme, please get in touch for the most recent version.
Welsh-Irish baritone Phil Gault figures that most people don’t read these biogs for a list of roles (available elsewhere on this site), so suffice it to say that he has performed in the UK and abroad, in many roles, for many companies. The most bizarre range from Carmen in the all male CarMen, a giant rabbit in Postcards from Dumbworld, or a drug-addled banker in Spike: The Opera. He’s also done the usual operatic suspects: Don Giovanni, the Count (Figaro), Dandini (La Cenerentola) etc, as well as concert performances of Carmina Burana, several Bach cantatas and so on, and solo recitals with repertoire from Dichterliebe to Chansons Gaillardes.
Interesting TV jobs include hand doubling for Tobias Menzies on Outlander (his left hand graces the poster and 500,000 phone covers), professional calligrapher (you wouldn’t know it from his normal handwriting), hurdling for a soft drink advert, pretending to be Sir Chris Hoy’s thighs for a BBC comedy sketch show, and being chief henchman for Karen Dunbar in an episode of the children’s TV programme MI:High (in an Austrian accent.) He has also done live broadcast opera in Welsh with Opra Cymru of the title roles in the award nominated “Barbwr Sefil” and “Macbeth.”
He has worked for the world’s first virtual Biobank, performed in the UK’s largest Burlesque club, served, cellared, and cooked in several bars and restaurants (some more prestigious than others), and has taught singing and musicianship privately and in educational establishments at all levels from nursery and Primary School through to University and adult education, in both the private and public sectors.
When not singing, he enjoys running, cycling, and swimming (he completed IronMan Wales in 2018 after leading the anthem at the start in a wetsuit) and has completed several marathons, both on and off road. In spite of this, he likes people to buy him drinks, having read this in the late great Terry Pratchett’s biog, and thinking it’s worth a shot…
Gallery
Scottish Opera – Five:15
