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 Omar Ebrahim
Reviews
Omar Ebrahim became a chorister at the newly built Coventry Cathedral in 1964 and his subsequent exposure to the vibrant cultural life led him to study singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He served his performing apprenticeship at the Royal Shakespeare Company and in the Glyndebourne chorus, performing the role of Schaunard in La Bohème for Glyndebourne Touring Opera in 1980.
He has been involved with many contemporary opera and concert performances including Nigel Osborne's The Electrification of the Soviet Union, Tippett’s New Year and Birtwistle’s The Second Mrs. Kong for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Berio’s Un re in ascolto and Birtwistle’s Gawain for the Royal Opera House (also released by Collins Classics), Hans Jürgen von Bose's 63 Dream Palace and Peter Lieberson's King Gesar for the Munich Biennale and Tanglewood (also recorded for Sony), Stephen Oliver's Beauty and the Beast for the City of Birmingham Touring Opera, Nigel Osborne's Terrible Mouth and Jonathan Dove's Siren Song for Almeida Opera and Punch and Judy (Choregos) for Basel Opera. For Opera Factory he has appeared in roles ranging from Punch in Punch & Judy though to Don Giovanni. He sang in the highly acclaimed performance of Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus at London's South Bank Centre's Birtwistle Festival in April 1996. He has also sung concert performances of Philip Glass's Satyagraha at the South Bank Centre in London and the title role in Laman's Agamemnon at the Holland Festival. More recently he has sung in John Casken’s God’s Liar for Almeida Opera and La Monnaie Brussels, the premiere of Peter Eotvos’s Angels in America at the Chatelet Theatre Paris and Jonathan Lunn’s Tangier Tattoo for Glyndebourne Touring Opera.
Other roles have included Schaunard La Bohème and Tobias Sweeney Todd for New Israeli Opera, Belfiore Un giorno di regno for Dorset Opera and the lead role in Marschner's The Vampyr for BBC Television. He has performed in The Rise & Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Iolanthe (Strephon) and Die Fledermaus (Orlofsky) for Scottish Opera and the title role in Richard Jones acclaimed production of Verdi's Macbeth for Opera Go Round. For Opera Theatre Company Dublin he has sung Escamillo Carmen and Der Kaiser von Atlantis.
He is closely associated with the work Aventures, nouvelles aventures by Gyorgy Ligeti and has performed the piece to critical acclaim with ensembles worldwide, including Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Opera Factory, Esa Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group and Ensemble Recherche. He recorded Aventures, nouvelles aventures for Sony with the Philharmonia and Esa Pekka Salonen. More recently he has performed it with the Ensemble Modern, Schoenberg Ensemble (released by Teldec Music), at the BBC Proms and in the Lincoln Center New York.
Omar Ebrahim makes regular appearances with the Ensemble Modern (including Zappa’s Greggary Peccary/Dental Hygiene Drama and Eotvos’s Snatches of conversation), Ensemble InterContemporain (Mason’s ChaplinOperas) and London Sinfonietta. Other recent concerts include performances with Northern Sinfonia, Musik Fabrik Cologne, Bochum Symphoniker, Netherlands Vara Radio Orchestra, Ensemble Umze at the Huddersfield Festival and Composers Ensemble. In 2005 he premiered James Wood’s oratorio Hildegard 2000 throughout the UK and the Netherlands.
As an actor he has performed Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon, most recently with the Salzburg Camerata during the Salzburg Festival, and Strauss's melodrama on Tennyson's Enoch Arden for IRCAM in Paris and A Survivor from Warsaw (Schoenberg) and The Raft of the Medusa (Henze) with BBC Symphony Orchestra. He also played Archie Cannibal in Chips with Everything at Leeds Playhouse.
Recent successes include premiere’s of The Navigator by Liza Lim with Elision Ensemble in Brisbane, Melbourne and Moscow, Kris Defoort’s The House of the Sleeping Beauties with LOD in Brussels, Paris and Amsterdam, Skellig by Todd Machover at The Sage Gateshead, and Enno Poppe’s Arbeit Nahrung Wohnung at the Munich Biennale which had further performances in Vienna, Stuttgart, Venice, Madrid and Berlin. Recent concerts include performances with Ensemble Intercontemporain, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and Peter Eotvos’ Angels in America at the Barbican Centre London.
During the 2010-11 season he sings Philip Glass’s In the Penal Colony with Music Theatre Wales at the Linbury Theatre Covent Garden and on tour, the premier of Luc Brewaey’s L’intruse for Flanders Operaand further performance of Liza Lim’s The Navigator including at the Holland Festival. Concerts include Enno Poppe’s Interzone with Ensemble Mosaik at the Huddersfield Festival and in s’Hertogenbosch, and new works by Liza Lim with Musikfabrik and Naomi Pinnock with the London Sinfonietta.
Management:
Andrew Rosner
e: andrew@alliedartists.co.uk
t: +44 20 7589 6243
f: +44 20 7581 5269
Representation:
General Management Worldwide
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