A voice for Bach, Handel & beyond

Matthew Brook is known for his honest and open portrayal of character, whether on the opera or the concert stage. He leapt to fame with the Dunedin Consort’s Gramophone Award-winning recording of Handel’s Messiah in 2007, and has since appeared as a soloist throughout Europe, Australia, North and South America and the Far East.

Bach and Handel

His interpretations of Bach and Handel have earned him a worldwide reputation. He sings Christus in the Passions with many of the world’s finest ensembles, most recently the St Matthew Passion with Klaus Mäkelä and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and Baden-Baden, and with the RIAS Kammerchor and the Irish Baroque Orchestra. He has sung Pilate with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Royal Festival Hall and with the Orchestra of St Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, and the St John Passion with the Dunedin Consort at the BBC Proms.

His filmed performances for the Netherlands Bach Society’s All of Bach series include the cantata Wachet auf, BWV 140, which has been watched more than three million times.

On the opera stage

Matthew made his Opéra national de Paris debut as Il Re di Scozia in Robert Carsen’s new production of Ariodante under Harry Bicket, a role he has also sung at Staatstheater Stuttgart and on tour with Joyce DiDonato and The English Concert at the Barbican, Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center.

He has sung Claudio in Agrippina at the Opéra de Rouen and Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, Chelsias in Susanna for Opera North, Simone in Gianni Schicchi alongside Bryn Terfel and Lodovico in Otello at Grange Park Opera, Seneca in L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and Zuniga in Carmen at the Opéra Comique under Sir John Eliot Gardiner. He created the role of Aeneas in Errollyn Wallen’s Dido’s Ghost, written for him and premiered at the Barbican and the Edinburgh International Festival.

In concert

His musical tastes stretch far beyond the Baroque. He regularly performs Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis, Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ, Brahms’s Requiem, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, Haydn’s The Creation and The Seasons, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Tippett’s A Child of Our Time and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, and often sings new commissions, among them James MacMillan’s Since it was the day of Preparation with the Hebrides Ensemble and the Dunedin Consort. In recital he appears with the pianist Anna Markland.

He has enjoyed long collaborations with conductors including Sir Andrew Davis, Harry Bicket, Bernard 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, and has also worked with Richard Tognetti, Sir Mark Elder, Emmanuelle Haïm, Laurence Equilbey, Maxim Emelyanychev, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Laurence Cummings and Christian Curnyn.

Recordings

His discography has brought many awards. The Dunedin Consort’s Messiah won the 2007 Gramophone Award for Baroque Vocal, and their reconstruction of Mozart’s Requiem won the 2014 Gramophone Choral Award and a Grammy nomination. Acis and Galatea and the St John Passion were both Gramophone Recordings of the Month, and Ich habe genug won the choral category of the 2022 BBC Music Magazine Awards. Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with La Nuova Musica received the Premio Abbiati del Disco in 2024, and a live Messiah with Tenebrae and the Academy of Ancient Music won an OPUS KLASSIK in 2025.

Matthew lives on the coast of South Wales.