Alexander Chance & Toby Carr

• Alexander Chance 

Alexander Chance was a Choral Scholar and read Classics at New College, Oxford. Solo appearances include a recital in Paris’s Salle Cortot of Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater and other Baroque works with Les Accents and Thibault Noally; Britten’s Canticles with Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake at the Ravenna Festival; Bach’s St John Passion with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists (recorded for Deutsche Grammophon); Bach’s B minor Mass with Masaaki Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan; works by Purcell and Handel with Kristian Bezuidenhout and Freiburger Barockorchester; Handel’s Messiah with orchestras such as the Academy of Ancient Music, London Handel Players and Instruments of Time & Truth; regular appearances with ensembles such as Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen, Vox Luminis and Lionel Meunier, and La Nuova Musica and David Bates. 

2021 saw Chance’s stage debut as Oberon in The Grange Festival’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and in 2022 he featured in several stage roles at The Vache Baroque Festival. In 2022, he became the first countertenor to win the International Handel Singing Competition, also winning the Audience Prize. 2023 highlights include performing the role of Tolomeo in English Touring Opera’s production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, and a tour of Bach’s St Matthew Passion with Freiburger Barockorchester and Vox Luminis. 

• Toby Carr 

Lutenist and guitarist Toby Carr is known as a versatile and engaging artist, working with some of the finest musicians in the business. While studying the classical guitar at Trinity Laban he was introduced to historical plucked instruments, an interest he pursued during a postgraduate degree at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, graduating in 2016 and welcomed back as a professor in 2021. Now in demand as a soloist, chamber musician and continuo player, his playing has been described as ‘sensuous and vivid’ (The Guardian), ‘Eloquent’ (BBC Music Magazine) and ‘Mesmerising’ (Opera Today). 

Carr has performed with most of the principal period instrument ensembles in the UK and beyond, as well as with many symphony orchestras, opera companies and ballet companies.