The British tenor Laurence Kilsby studied as an ABRSM Vocal Scholar at the Royal College of Music in London and at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. In the 2022/23 season he was a member of the opera studio of the Paris Opéra. He was the first Lies Askonas Fellow and won the Kathleen Ferrier Society Bursary for Young Singers in 2018, as well as the Wigmore Hall / Bollinger International Song Competition and the Cesti Competition of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music in 2022.
Opera engagements have taken him to the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Opéra de Dijon and the Cologne Opera. He made his Salzburg Festival debut in 2023 as Iopas and Hylas in a concert performance of Berlioz’s Les Troyens with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Highlights of the 2024/25 season have included L’Amour, High Priest of Jupiter and An Athlete in Castor et Pollux at the Paris Opéra, Lurcanio (Ariodante) at the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg, Elon in Samson with music by Rameau at the Opéra Comique, Ulisse in Caldara’s Ifigenia in Aulide at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, and concert performances with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under Reinhard Goebel, the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Leonardo García-Alarcón, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland under Peter Whelan and the Ensemble Pygmalion under Raphaël Pichon.
In the 2025/26 season Laurence Kilsby makes his debut at the Glyndebourne Festival as Novice (Billy Budd) and sings Lurcanio at the Opéra Royal in Versailles. His concert projects include performances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo at the BBC Proms, Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Klaus Mäkelä, a UK tour of Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with the Sinfonia of London under John Wilson, and his USA concert debut in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s under Raphaël Pichon.
He continues his regular collaborations with Pichon and Ensemble Pygmalion with a tour of the St Matthew Passion and performances at the Adelaide Festival. He also undertakes a tour of Handel’s Theodora with the Ensemble Jupiter and gives recitals with the pianist Ella O’Neill at the Fundación Juan March in Madrid and at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris. He released his debut album with O’Neill, Awakenings, in 2024.
Laurence Kilsby began his training as a chorister in Tewkesbury Abbey’s Schola Cantorum. In 2009 he was awarded the title of Young Chorister of the Year by BBC Radio 2 and soon afterwards made his solo debut at the Royal Albert Hall.
