Nicholas Isherwood

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Nicholas Isherwood is a Franco-American bass singer who specializes in contemporary and baroque music. He is best known for originating the role of Lucifer in the world premieres of Stockhausen’s Licht cycle (Montag, Dienstag, Freitag) at La Scala and the Leipzig Opera, and for the role in Donnerstag aus Licht at Covent Garden.

Over his career he has worked with many renowned conductors, such as Joel Cohen, William Christie, Peter Eötvös, Paul McCreesh, Nicholas McGegan, Kent Nagano, Zubin Mehta, and Gennady Rozhdestvensky, and with composers including Sylvano Bussotti, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Hans Werner Henze, Mauricio Kagel, György Kurtág, Olivier Messiaen, Giacinto Scelsi, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis. He has performed in major venues around the world, including La Scala, Covent Garden, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Salzburg Festival, the Concertgebouw, the Berlin Staatsoper, and the Vienna Konzerthaus.

His other operatic roles include Antinoo in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria with Boston Baroque; Claudio in Handel’s Agrippina with Nicholas McGegan; Satiro in Rossi’s Orfeo and Pan in Marais’ Alcyone with Les Arts Florissants; Joas in Porpora's Il Gedeone with Martin Haselböck; Frère Léon in Messiaen's Saint François d’Assise in a supervisor-produced setting; Der Tod in Viktor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis with the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart and 2e2m; Roméo in Dusapin’s Roméo et Juliette at the Avignon Festival; Lear in Toshio Hosokawa’s Vision of Lear for the Munich Biennale; Il Testimone in Bussotti’s Tieste at the Rome Opera; and Micromégas in Paul Mefano's Micromégas.

In 2019, he sang the doctor in Francesco Filidei's L'Inondation at the Opéra de Rennes and the Opéra de Nantes.

As a teacher, Isherwood has had a very active career, teaching voice and opera at institutions in France, Germany, and the United States. His teaching credits include the IRCAM Summer Academy, Stockhausen-Kurse, SUNY, University of Notre Dame, Ecole Normale de Musique (Paris), CalArts, and the University of Oregon (2008–2011). From 2015 to 2018 he was a professor of voice at CNSMD de Lyon, and since 2019 he has been a professor of voice at the Conservatoire de Montbéliard. He has given masterclasses and lectures at many leading institutions around the world and authored The Techniques of Singing, a guide to performing contemporary vocal music.