Sir John Tomlinson

Born in Lancashire, Sir John Tomlinson gained a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester before winning a scholarship to the Royal Manchester College of Music. He has sung regularly with English National Opera since 1974 and with The Royal Opera, Covent Garden since 1977, having also appeared with all the other leading British opera companies. He sang at the Bayreuth Festival for eighteen consecutive seasons (including ten seasons as Wotan/Wanderer in Wagner’s ‘Ring’) and has also enjoyed operatic engagements in Milan, Geneva, Barcelona, Lisbon, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin (both the Deutsche Oper and the Deutsche Staatsoper), Dresden, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna, and Bilbao, as well as at the festivals of Orange, Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg, Edinburgh, and Florence (the Maggio Musicale). John Tomlinson was awarded a CBE in 1997, knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2005 and is honoured to be the President of the RNCM.