Nathan Mercieca

Counter-tenor

Nathan Mercieca started singing as a boy chorister in the London Oratory School Schola, with whom he recorded the soundtracks to, among others, The Lord of The Rings and Finding Neverland. He went on to study at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he was Senior Choral Exhibitioner, and subsequently completed postgraduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Theresa Goble. In that time he was fortunate to take part in masterclasses with Anne Murray DBE, Dame Emma Kirkby, Amanda Roocroft, and Sarah Pring.

Operatic roles include Peisander (cover) in Monteverdi The Return of Ulysses (Royal Opera House/Curnyn), Sorceress/Spirit in Purcell Dido and Aeneas (Armonico/Monks), and Arsamene in Cavalli Xerse at the Grimeborn Festival. He workshopped the role of Yoël in Na’ama Zisser’s new opera MAMZER/Bastard, also for the Royal Opera. Recent highlights on the concert stage include appearances at LSO St. Luke’s in Bernstein Chichester Psalms, St. John Smith’s Square in Purcell Hail Bright Cecilia, West Road Concert Hall in Orff Carmina Burana, and a gala performance Handel’s Esther as part of the tricentennial celebrations of Hawksmoore’s historic St Alfege Church in Greenwich.

Equally experienced as a recitalist, he was selected by Graham Johnson for the Guildhall’s Song Circle, with whom he performed Britten’s Canticles at Milton Court, and made his Wigmore Hall debut in June 2018. A keen exponent of new music, he has given several first performances; he appears as the alto soloist in Stuart MacRae’s Cantata for soloists, choir, and lyre on Delphian Records.

Nathan holds a PhD in musicology from Royal Holloway, University of London. He is co-founder and committee member of the Critical Theory for Musicology Study Group, and teaches a variety of historical and analytical topics at Cambridge University.