Oddur Jónsson is a Britten-Pears Young Artist and one of the most significant vocal talents to have emerged from Iceland in a generation. He recently appeared as Michael in Daníel Bjarnason’s acclaimed new opera Brothers, an award-winning production staged by Kasper Holten, and was named Most Promising Artist at the 2015 Icelandic Music Awards.

That same year Oddur made his Paris debut singing Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at the Palais Garnier in a new staging by John Neumeier. Roles at the Icelandic Opera have included Rodrigo in Don Carlo, Wolfram in Tannhäuser, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, the title role in Don Giovanni, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Schaunard in La bohème, Belcore in L’elisir d’amore, Prince Yeletsky in Pique Dame, Ned Keene in Peter Grimes, Kaiser Overall in Ullmann’s Kaiser von Atlantis and Oreste in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride.

Oddur is a prizewinning oratorio and lieder singer. His oratorio repertoire includes Bach’s Passions, B minor Mass, Christmas Oratorio and cantatas including Ich habe genug and Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen in addition to Handel’s Messiah and Solomon, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle and Puccini’s Messa di Gloria. As a recitalist he has sung Schubert’s Winterreise and Schwanengesang, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Schumann’s Liederkreis and Brahms’s Liebeslieder Walzer.

In 2014 Oddur was awarded the Lied, Oratorio Performer and Schubert Prizes at the Francesc Viñas Competition in Barcelona and in 2013 he won first prize in the International Brahms Competition in Pörtschach, Austria. He has been a finalists at the International Mozart Competition, the Belvedere Competition, the International Schubert Lied-Duo Competition Dortmund, the Concorso Musica Sacra Rome and the International Vocal Lied-Duo Competition‘s-Hertogenbosch. He was invited to take part in the Schubert Residency at the Aix-en-Provence Festival with Matthias Goerne and Markus Hinterhäuser and he recently took part in the Oxford Lieder Festival’s Master-Class led by Wolfgang Holzmair.

Oddur studied with Andreas Macco and Martha Sharp at the Mozarteum University Salzburg, where he graduated with distinction. During his postgraduate studies he was awarded the Lilli Lehmann Medal from the Mozarteum International Foundation. He is the recipient of a scholarship and the Audience Prize from the Walter and Charlotte Hamel Foundation in Hannover and a scholarship from the Gianna-Szell Foundation in Salzburg.

Oddur has been featured with Copenhagen Opera Festival 2018 and the remarkahle English baritone Christopher Maltman in cooperation with vocal coach and pianist, Audrey Saint-Gil.

He recently won Singer of the year 2018 at the Icelandic Music Awards for Classical and Contemprary Music.

Season 2018-2019 contains debuts as Peter in Hänsel und Gretel, Baron Douphol in La Traviata, Il Conte Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro -all at Icelandic National Opera, as well as engagements with Oulu Symphony Orchestra and Arctic Sinfonietta in Bodø among others.

Photo:  Melissa Zgouridi Studios