The countertenor Cameron Shahbazi is internationally acclaimed as an interpreter of both Baroque and contemporary repertory. In 2023 he received the Opus Klassik in the category ‘Innovative Concert of the Year’ for a benefit concert for human rights in Iran, which he conceived and presented at the Frankfurt Opera under the title ‘Frau.Leben.Freiheit.’ (‘Woman.Life.Freedom.’).
In the 2024/25 season Cameron Shahbazi made his debuts at the Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona as Tolomeo in Calixto Bieito’s production of Giulio Cesare and at the Vancouver Opera as the Refugee in Jonathan Dove’s Flight. Following the triumphant premiere of George Benjamin’s new opera Picture a Day Like This at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2023, he starred in the same production at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and in Strasbourg and Luxembourg. Together with the pianist Sophia Muñoz he presented the recital Warsaw Sessions in Warsaw and Paris, featuring music from Henry Purcell to Louis Armstrong, along with Persian songs.
Highlights of recent seasons have included Hamor (Jephtha) in his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Tolomeo at the Glyndebourne Festival and the Dutch National Opera, Anfinomo in the production Il ritorno / Das Jahr des magischen Denkens at the Bavarian State Opera and Picture a Day Like This in its world premiere in Aix-en-Provence, followed by performances in the Linbury Theatre at the Royal Opera House in London.
On the concert platform he most recently appeared in Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, in Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with the Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal in Versailles, in George Benjamin’s Dream of the Song with the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne, in an open-air gala at the Leipzig Bachfest, in Handel’s Messiah at the Koerner Hall in Toronto and in recitals at the Frankfurt Opera and the Sainte-Chapelle Opera Festival in Paris.
Other past opera engagements have included Oberon (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) in Frankfurt, the title role in Tolomeo, re d’Egitto at the Handel Festival in Karlsruhe, Tolomeo (Giulio Cesare) with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, First Angel / Boy in Benjamin‘s Written on Skin and Guildenstern in Brett Dean’s Hamlet in Cologne, Sergei Diaghilev in the world premiere of Willem Jeths’s Ritratto at the Dutch National Opera, Disinganno (Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno) in Aachen and the title role of Cavalli’s Il Giasone for Opera Neo.
Cameron Shahbazi comes from Hamilton (Canada) and is a graduate of the University of Toronto and of the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. He has won several international awards.
