Thomas Hemsley

Thomas Hemsley was born in Coalville, Leicestershire, in April 1927 and studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he sang in the college chapel choir and read for an MA. He completed his vocal training at the Royal Academy of Music after Oxford and made his début with the Cambridge University Opera Group in 1951.

He was particularly associated with the contemporary British operatic and concert repertoire. He gave the world premieres of Britten’s *The Burning Fiery Furnace* and *The Prodigal Son*, parts in works by Tippett, Maw, Searle and Bennett, and the title role in the British premiere of Henze’s *The Bassarids* (1968). He held appointments at the Aachen Stadttheater (1953–55), the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf (1957–63), and the Zurich Opera (1963–67), with substantial guest appearances at Covent Garden, Sadler’s Wells, the Glyndebourne Festival and the BBC concert programmes. He was a notable Mozart baritone — the Count and Don Alfonso particularly — and a regular recitalist in the German lieder tradition. He was the author of *Singing and Imagination: A Human Approach to a Great Musical Tradition* (1998).

Hemsley taught at the Royal Academy of Music in his later career and died in Sussex in April 2013. Music Preserved’s archive includes a range of his contemporary and operatic work.