Biography

Jolyon Loy is an emerging British-Irish baritone. Upcoming engagements in 2024/25 include covering the title role in Eugene Onegin & his mainstage debut as Schaunard La bohème at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by Speranza Scappucci; a return to English National Opera as Earl of Morton in Thea Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots; Paolo Albiani Simon Boccanegra in his debut for Grange Park Opera, and Marullo Rigoletto, conducted by Asher Fisch, in his debut at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl. With Iain Burnside, he appears in The Lad That Loved You Was The One That Kept His Word: The Life of A E Housmann Through Letters and Songs at Ludlow English Song Weekend. Released in October 2024, he also features as the baritone soloist on ‘Songs from Faust’, a new CD tracing Goethe’s Faust legend, recorded for Champs Hill Records.

Recent highlights include his debut with English National Opera as Aye in Phelim McDermott’s Olivier award-winning production of Akhnaten, conducted by Karen Kamensek, having previously covered Mr Kallenbach in Satyagraha; Escamillo Carmen in a G7 Opera Gala with the Orchestra dell’Arena di Verona at the Teatro Filarmonico di Verona, and Tarquinius in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia at The Royal Opera House's Linbury Theatre, directed by Oliver Mears and conducted by Corinna Niemeyer (broadcast on BBC Radio 3). His portrayal received widespread critical acclaim, described as ‘brilliantly played by Jolyon Loy, his tensile, dynamic vocalism underlining his menace’ (The Stage). ‘Loy's bright, virile voice is impressive, ringing out with formidable top notes' (Musical America) and ‘seems all the more dangerously psychopathic for being so charismatic of both voice and presence.’ (The Guardian).

Elsewhere he has appeared as Figaro Le nozze di Figaro as an Opera Holland Park Young Artist; Don Alfonso Così fan tutte as a Garsington Opera Alvarez Young Artist; Zoroastro Orlando with Ensemble Hesperi at Buxton International Festival; Aeneas Dido & Aeneas at the inaugural Vache Baroque Festival; Count Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro at the Berlin Opera Festival; 1st Priest/2nd Armed Man Die Zauberflöte, conducted by Stanislav Kochanovsky, and Wächter Die Frau ohne Schatten, conducted by Valery Gergiev at the Verbier Festival; Schaunard La bohème for Clonter Opera; Leone Tamerlano with Cambridge Handel Opera; Sonora La fanciulla del West at Wexford Festival Opera; Peter Hansel & Gretel with British Youth Opera & Minskman in Jonathan Dove’s Flight with Opera Collective Ireland.

Nominated for a Gramophone Award, Jolyon featured as Apollo on Academy of Ancient Music’s landmark recording of Eccles’ Semele, released on AAM Records, and performed in concert with Cambridge Early Music. He has worked with conductors such as Laurence Cummings, Christian Curnyn & Philippe Herreweghe, his engagements including Handel Messiah with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Bach St Matthew Passion at Dartington International Festival; Handel Theodora, directed by Dame Sarah Connolly, at Snape Maltings Concert Hall; Bach B Minor Mass & Duruflé Requiem at Glasgow City Halls; Orff Carmina Burana with Hertfordshire Chorus at London’s Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall; Handel Dixit Dominus at the National Opera House, Wexford; Dupré De Profundis at Tewkesbury Abbey; Puccini Messa di Gloria & Fauré Requiem at Arundel Cathedral; Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music at St John’s, Smith Square, and ‘Rossi’s Songs of Solomon: A Baroque Hanukkah’ with Vache Baroque, broadcast as part of BBC3’s Lunchtime Concert series.

Jolyon’s numerous awards include an Extraordinary Prize at the 60th Tenor Viñas; 2nd Prize & the Bayreuth Stipendium at the Wagner Society Singing Competition, held at Wigmore Hall; a Glyndebourne New Generation Young Artist Development Award, a Countess of Munster Award and the Richard Van Allan Award from Help Musicians UK. From 2020-22, he was an Associate & Young Artist at the National Opera Studio in London appearing in concert at ENO, Opera North, Welsh National Opera & London’s Cadogan Hall. He is an alumnus of the Verbier Festival’s Atelier Lyrique, the Britten Pears YAP, the Internationale OpernWerkstatt - Festival der jungen Stimmen, British Youth Opera, the Garsington Opera Alvarez YAP, the Opera Holland Park YAP, Opera Prelude & the Glyndebourne Chorus. He trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the Royal Academy of Music, as a choral scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read French & Italian, and as a chorister & lay clerk at Worcester Cathedral.