RPS Music Awards Presenter

Sir John Tomlinson

John Tomlinson was born in Lancashire. He gained a BSc in Civil Engineering at Manchester University before going on to studies at the Royal Manchester College of Music and with Otakar Kraus. 

He sings regularly with The Royal Opera and English National Opera and has appeared with all the major British opera companies. He sang at the Bayreuth Festival for eighteen consecutive seasons from 1988, as Wotan, the Wanderer, King Marke, Titurel, Gurnemanz, Hagen and Holländer. He has also appeared in Berlin (Deutsche Oper Berlin and Berlin Staatsoper), Geneva, Lisbon, Stuttgart, Vancouver, San Francisco, New York, Pittsburgh, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Vienna, Bologna, Florence, Tokyo and the Glyndebourne, Orange, Aix-en-Provence, Munich and Salzburg festivals. 

Engagements in 2010 include General The Gambler for the Royal Opera, Hagen and Gurnemanz in Vienna, Hagen in Hamburg, Hunding in Milan, and concerts at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, St John’s Smith Square and Dresden Semperoper. Subsequent performances include Gurnemanz for English National Opera, Thomas à Becket Assassinio Nella Cattedrale in Frankfurt and reprising the title role of The Minotaur for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. 

John Tomlinson is the winner of three RPS Singer Awards – in 1991, 1998 and 2007. In 1993, he won a Grammy Award for Bartok's Cantata Profana and in February 2007 he was honoured with the "Special Award" at the Laurence Olivier Award Ceremony. He was awarded a CBE in 1997 and Knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 2005.