Thomas Oliemans

Dutch baritone Thomas Oliemans is a regular guest on leading opera, concert and festival stages.

In roles ranging from Hercule in Handel's Alceste to Valmont in Francesconi's Quartet, he has performed at Metropolitan Opera New York, Staatsoper Berlin, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Staatsoper Hamburg, De Nationale Opera Amsterdam, Bergen National Opera, Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, English National Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, Gran Teatro del Liceu Barcelona, Gothenburg Opera, Vlaamse Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse, Theater Basel, Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and Grand Théâtre de Genève.

Thomas Oliemans has worked with conductors and ensembles such as Daniel Barenboim, Ivor Bolton, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Simone Young, Raphaël Pichon, Marc Albrecht, Antonello Manacorda, Peter Dijkstra, Jaap van Zweden, Vassily Petrenko, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Pygmalion and Amsterdam Sinfonietta.

A sought-after recitalist, he has appeared in Oxford, Cambridge, Vienna, Zürich, Stuttgart, Basel, Antwerp, London (Wigmore Hall), New York, Toronto, Tokyo and Paris with pianists Malcolm Martineau, Roger Vignoles, Graham Johnson and Paolo Giacometti.

Thomas Oliemans is a regular guest at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and was artist in resident there last season. Highly praised by critics and public are his solo recitals of Schubert’s Winterreise accompanying himself on the piano. In preparation for these recitals he recorded a 25 episodes podcast on behalf of the Concertgebouw. Together with dutch journalist and moderator Gijs Groenteman he presents the cycle with its musical, literary and emotional aspects to the public.

He curated the 2019 Delft Chamber Music Festival and was on the Jury of the 2019 International Vocal Competition s’Hertogenbosch, where he also appeared in recital with Graham Johnson and gave a masterclass. He was also invited to give masterclasses at the Operastudio of the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam and most recently at the Academia Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Recordings include the album Formidable! dedicated to French Chanson, with Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Schumann’s Dichterliebe and song cycles op 89 and 90, Mendelssohn’s Elias with Akamus Berlin and the RIAS Kammerchor under Hans-Christoph Rademann, works by Frank Martin for baritone with Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Brahms’ Requiem together with Residentie Orkest and Jan Willem de Vriend as well as with Flemish Rado Choir and Bart van Reyn, Schubert’s three song cycles, several volumes of songs by Poulenc and Fauré with Malcolm Martineau, Christus in Bach’s Johannes-Passion with the Orchestra of the 18th Century and Frans Brüggen and Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and Gordan Nikolic. In August 2023 a new CD of Brahms’ Die schöne Magelone together with Malcolm Martineau was released by Linn Records.

The season 2023-24 will see his return to De Nationale Opera Amsterdam as Father-in- Law in Saahiaroh’s Innocence and as Papageno/Die Zauberflöte as well as to Staatsoper Berlin in the world premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie’s Melancholie des Widerstands. Furthermore, he will be performing in recitals with pianist Malcolm Martineau as well as accompanying himself on the piano.

Updated: 01/09/2023