Giles Underwood

An experienced oratorio and consort singer, Giles Underwood has recently specialised in building and training young voices

Giles Underwood has a varied career as a bass-baritone, voice teacher, vocal coach and conductor. Before taking up the post of Professor of Singing at the Academy in 2016, he taught at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His students have gone on to young artist schemes in Helsinki, Vienna, Zurich and Florence, as well as the National Opera Studio. He runs a successful teaching practice in Oxford with students from a variety of colleges. He taught in Cambridge from 2004 to 2013 and since 2013 he has been Director of Music at University College, Oxford.

He has led workshops and education projects for The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The London Symphony Chorus, Cor de Cambra of Barcelona, the Granada Festival and Chorworks in Washington DC. He has done residencies at The College of New Jersey and Duke University in the US. He has been a teacher on Rodolfus Choral Courses every year since 1995 and has taught for the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain.

Giles has sung with many of the UK’s leading vocal ensembles. His nine-year membership of I Fagiolini taught him the most about consort singing, from staged productions of Monteverdi madrigals to more unusual contemporary repertoire. His solo work has taken him around the world, and he has sung roles in operas by Britten, Mozart and Puccini, as well as by James MacMillan, Edward Dudley Hughes, Cavalli, Paisiello, Salieri and Martinu.

In 2017 he founded the solo voice ensemble Martlet Voices whose purpose is to offer student singers the opportunity to sing alongside professional ensemble singers. This collaboration has led to the group performing over a dozen different themed programmes, singing music from Cornysh and Monteverdi to newly commissioned works.