Scottish tenor Matthew McKinney has been named as the winner of the 2024 Kathleen Ferrier Competition. Held on Friday, 26th April 2024 at London's Wigmore Hall, the jury included industry professionals Graeme Broadbent, Christopher Glynn, Susan Gritton, Ruby Philogene, with David Syrus as chair.

Soprano Madeline Boreham received the second prize, with Charlotte Jane Kennedy, also a soprano receiving the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize. Pianist Frioze Madon was awarded the Help Musicians Accompanist Prize. 

McKinney is a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and will sing with the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus in 2024. He recently recorded Gastone (La traviata, OperaGlass Works) and Rodolfo (La bohème, Robin Norton-Hale’s feature, produced by Finite Films) and in 2023 performed Luigino (Il viaggio a Reims) and Rustighello (Lucrezia Borgia) for English Touring Opera. At the RCS Matthew won the Norma Grieg French Song Competition and RCS Governors’ Recital Prize.

Speaking of receiving the award, McKinney told Opera Now: 'I am still overwhelmed by the whole experience. I wonder when I’ll come back down to earth - seems impossible right now! The competition was a whirlwind of hard work and emotion. I pushed myself to do things I hadn’t done before and I’m so grateful that the audience and panel were willing to come on that journey with me. It’s a very special feeling to have been so vulnerable in a public situation and have that vulnerability met with warmth, acceptance and appreciation. I can’t describe how moving that is.'

Chair of the jury David Syrus said of the competition: 'Four gifted young people won prizes on Friday, but of course the competition brought forward a huge amount of imaginative singing and playing - would that we had more funds to give out! But the most sincere, and grateful, congratulations must be to Matthew McKinney, the winner of the First Prize, for three rounds of passionate, committed singing, that in its outstanding communicative power celebrated so movingly the spirit of Ferrier herself.'

The Kathleen Ferrier Awards have run since 1956, with previous winners of the competition including Felix Gygli, Hugh Cutting, Helen Charlston, Karen Cargill, Natalya Romaniw, Theodore Platt, Alessandro Fisher and Ella Taylor.

ferrierawards.org.uk