Winner of the 2024 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Scottish tenor Matthew McKinney is quickly establishing himself as an exciting and sensitive young singer. He recently recorded Gastone La traviata (OperaGlass Works) and Rodolfo La bohème on Robin Norton-Hale’s forthcoming feature produced by Finite Films. He spends summer 2024 as a chorister at Glyndebourne Festival, before returning to English Touring Opera for their Autumn tour, where he will perform Beethoven’s An Die Ferne Geliebte as part of the newly compiled work Do Not Take My Story for a Fairy Tale, as well as covering the Tsar in a new English translation of Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden.

Other operatic roles include Damon Acis & Galatea for Ryedale Festival in 2022 and covering Henrik A Little Night Music at Opera North, having sung the role for Buxton International Festival in 2021. In 2023 he sang Luigino Il viaggio a Reims and Rustighello Lucrezia Borgia in new productions for ETO.

As a concert soloist, performances include Bach St John Passion, Handel Messiah, Haydn Creation, Mendelssohn Elijah, Mozart Requiem, Puccini Messe Di Gloria (The Orchestra of Sottish Opera). In October 2024, Matthew returns to Scotland in October to perform Macmillan’s All the Hills and Vales Along in Ayrshire. April 2025 will see Matthew debut as a step out soloist for the Dunedin Consort’s tour of Bach’s St Matthew Passion.

Following the success of the Ferrier, Matthew has established himself as an accomplished recitalist. He will tour, alongside duo partner Roelof Temmingh throughout the UK and Ireland in 2025. Cities and towns include London (Bechstein Hall), Glasgow (RCS and Westbourne Music Festival), Cambridge, Oxford, Devon (Whiddon Autumn Festival) and Cornwall. They are thrilled to have the opportunity to further explore their deep love of song repertoire.

Operatic choruses include Berlioz’ La Damnation du Faust, Bizet’s Carmen, Jonathan Dove’s The Day After, Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Korsakov’s The Golden Cockrel, Lehar’s The Merry Widow, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel, Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, Stravinski’s The Rake’s Progress, Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Die Götterdämmerung and Tristan Und Isolde and Weill’s Street Scene. You can catch Matthew’s heavily featured cameo role in Glyndebourne’s televised The Merry Widow, to be released by the BBC on Boxing Day 2024.

Matthew is a graduate of The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he was gratefully supported by the Robertson Trust, John Mather Rising Star scholarship, Help Musicians (Ian Fleming) Award, Sir James Caird Travelling Scholarship, WFT Anderson Scholarship, The Underwood Trust Scholarship and The Dale Scholarship. While studying, he was taught by with Professor Stephen Robertson. Matthew now studies with Robert Dean and has regular coaching with Jane Robinson and Nicky Spence. 

Alongside his growing career as a soloist, Matthew has a love for community music and music outreach. Over the years Matthew has loved conducting community choirs, touring new opera for kids around England, helping run interactive music workshops for toddlers, and being a part of charity organisations like Streetwise Opera. He hopes to continue growing this part of his career for as long as he works.

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