Tobias Cole (Photo by Bridget Elliot)
Tobias Cole is one of Australia’s most successful countertenors, travelling the country as a soloist in opera, oratorio and theatre. In Canberra he is Musical Director of Canberra Choral Society.
As a singer he made his U.S. debut in 2004 with the Chicago Opera Theatre playing Ottone in L’Incoronazione di Poppea, returning to sing Apollo in Death in Venice, and again in 2005 to perform Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Roles with Opera Australia include the title in Handel’s Julius Caesar, Medoro in Handel’s Orlando, and Oberon.
Tobias is an honours graduate of The University of Sydney music department and an Associate of London’s Royal College of Music. In 2002 he was the first countertenor to win Opera Foundation Australia’s Metropolitan Opera Young Artist Study Award, spending three months in New York at the Met.
Last year he performed the title role in a new production of Handel’s Xerxes for New Zealand Opera. His Melbourne performances of this role for Victorian Opera won him a Green Room Award in 2009. Also last year he performed the role of Studz (‘sung brilliantly by counter-tenor Tobias Cole’ – The Age) in the new opera How to Kill your Husband by Alan John for Victorian Opera and Roberto in Vivaldi’s Griselda for Pinchgut Opera (‘Cole’s countertenor sound has grown impressively in richness and expressiveness’ – SMH).
Tobias has performed in many festivals including Canberra International Music, Melbourne, Sydney, Woodend Winter Arts, Hughes and Australian Festival of Chamber Music. He has sung with Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Lautten Compagney of Berlin, Salut Baroque, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Song Company, Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.
Tobias’ reputation as a choir director has flourished in Canberra since he conducted Rautavaara’s Vigilia with Oriana Chorale in 2007. In that same year he became Musical Director of University of Canberra Chorale and in 2008 of Oriana Chorale, leaving both positions at the end of 2009 to pursue his solo career.
2012 singing engagements include Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular with MSO, Bach’s Mass in B minor for the Canberra International Music Festival, and reprising the role of Oberon in Opera Australia’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Brisbane.
Tobias lives in Canberra with his wife and three children.
