About

“Oliver Bowes also brought the character of the sympathetic traveller to life – powerfully sung and delicately portrayed.”

— Mike Levy, The Cambridge Critique

Oliver Bowes, baritone, graduated from the Royal College of Music in 2025, where he studied with award-winning tenor Ben Johnson and pianist, director and repertoire coach Bryan Evans. He began his music-making as a treble at Ely Cathedral under Paul Trepte but has long since found himself sinking to greater vocal depths. His recent projects have included Alidoro in Rossini’s La Cenerentola with Glass Light Opera, returning to the Southrepps Festival as the Traveller in Curlew River, and fighting bulls as Escamillo for Opera Integra’s Carmen. Other roles include Counsel for the Plaintiff in Trial by Jury; the eponymous King of Israel in Handel’s Saul and the handsome youth Adonis in Blow’s Venus and Adonis, both with Richmond Opera; Enrico Ashton in Brent Opera’s Lucia di Lammermoor directed by Louise Bakker; and, working closely with composers in a wide variety of styles, The Mariner in Contemporary Music Ventures’ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. He has performed as Figaro in excerpts from Il barbiere di Siviglia, Smirnov in Walton’s The Bear, Falstaff in Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and Athanael in Massenet’s Thaïs for RCM Opera Scenes. He created the role of I in Alisa Zaika’s I (Romance) for the RCM Contemporary Opera Scenes and covered the role of Baron Zeta in The Merry Widow. He has also been honoured to sing in masterclasses with Sir Thomas Allen, Pauliina Tukiainen, and Andrew Shore.

As a soloist for oratorio, he has been supported by the Josephine Baker Trust, who have invited him to sing in Mozart’s Requiem both at Leith Hill Musical Festival under Jonathan Willcocks, and with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields at Saffron Hall; Bach’s Johannespassion at Romsey Abbey and Lincoln Cathedral; the Matthäuspassion at St Mary’s Church, Beverley. He has also recently performed Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Chelsea Arts Club Singers and as Lucifero in Handel’s rarely-performed Italian oratorio La Resurrezione at St Barnabas, Ealing.

While working mainly as a soloist for Opera and Oratorio, he also composes, with a focus upon dramatic and liturgical music. In 2026 he was a finalist in Tenebrae’s Undiscovered Voices competition with his anthem Ēala Ēarendel, and was awarded the Fischer Fund Prize at the Shakespeare in Music competition of the London Song Festival for his song Nay, Sure, He’s Not In Hell. He previously studied under John Pickard and David Bednall, and further won awards for his cantata CROW, setting Ted Hughes’ poetry, and his symphonic suite 5 Images after Szukalski. He both wrote and performed in a new operatic retelling of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray in association with LoveOpera in 2019. His work as a composer continues, with recent compositions including pieces for short films, choirs, solo singers and chamber ensembles, as well as a set of new orchestrations of operatic arias and classical songs for the Southrepps Festival.