Roger Vignoles

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Roger Vignoles was inspired to pursue a career as a piano accompanist by the playing of Gerald Moore. Having read Music at Magdalene College, Cambridge, he joined the Royal Opera House as a repetiteur and then completed his training with the renowned Viennese-born teacher Paul Hamburger. Since then, reviewers worldwide have consistently recognised his distinctive qualities, likening Roger to “that Gerald Moore accompanist incarnate—but with better sound— truly without peer these days” (Audiophile Audition). In the course of his distinguished career he has collaborated with such leading singers as Elisabeth Söderström, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Thomas Allen, Barbara Bonney, Kathleen Battle, Christine Brewer, Brigitte Fassbaender, Bernarda Fink, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Dame Felicity Lott, Mark Padmore, John Mark Ainsley, Joan Rodgers and Sarah Walker. He performs regularly at major venues across the world such as the Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie Cologne, Vienna Konzerthaus, Vienna Musikverein, the Royal Concertgebouw, Musee d’Orsay, Carnegie Hall and the Frick Collection in New York, La Scala in Milan, Frankfurt Oper, Théatre des Champs-Élysées, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Bonn Beethovenfest and Teatro del Zarzuela in Madrid. Recently, he also made extended tours to Japan with Mihoko Fujimura, and to North America with Measha Brueggergosman and Kate Royal.

Roger Vignoles is frequently invited to devise and direct programmes and festivals of song. He has created several series at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, including “Young Brahms”, “Landscape into Song” (a celebration of Schubert) and “Scenes from Schumann”. From 1998 to 2002 he was artistic director of the Nagaoka Winter Festival in Japan. He is currently the artistic director of Sommer Lied Weinberg in Upper Austria, the Ciclo de Lied Galega at Santiago de Compostela in Spain and the Tetbury Festival in England. In 2009/10 he presented a series of Strauss songs recitals at the Wigmore Hall.

His extensive discography includes many highly-acclaimed recordings, from German Lieder and French Melodies to Spanish Canciones and Cabaret Songs: Schumann and Brahms with Bernarda Fink on Harmonia Mundi; the ongoing Hyperion Strauss series with Christine Brewer, Anne Schwanewilms, Andrew Kennedy, Christopher Maltman and Alastair Miles; and Schubert’s Schwanengesang with Robert Holl on Hyperion. His recent recording of Britten’s Winter Words and Holy sonnets of John Donne, Before Life and After, with Mark Padmore on Harmonia Mundi received the prestigious Diapason d’Or and Prix Caecilia awards in 2009.

Roger Vignoles is recognised internationally as an outstanding teacher and has given masterclasses in Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Stockholm, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Montreal and Toronto. He is a regular visitor to the University of Indiana, Bloomington, as well as to the Britten-Pears Young Artists’ Programme at Snape. Roger is Prince Consort Professor of Accompaniment at the Royal College of Music in London and has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Magdalene College, Cambridge honoris causa ('as a mark of honour').

Highlights in 2010/11 include recitals with Measha Brueggergosman and Elizabeth Watts at the Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; Wigmore Hall recitals with Christine Brewer, Christine Rice, Florian Boesch and Renata Pokupic; recitals with Miah Persson at Tonhalle, Zurich, Wigmore Hall and Wiener Konzerthaus; UK appearances at Bath Mozartfest, Tetbury, Oxford Lieder and Cheltenham Festivals; recitals with John Mark Ainsley at Oper Frankfurt and with Alek Shrader at Spivey Hall, Atlanta. In 2011/12 Roger Vignoles will curate his own song recital series at the Wigmore Hall.