Darryl Edwards

Biography

Darryl Edwards’ dedication to effectively fostering singers to their best performing long finds him acknowledged as "the coach behind many of Canada's best young voices these days." (Toronto Star). Prof. Edwards is Chair and Artistic Director of the Centre of Singing Arts. His students are frequent winners of national and international singing competitions, and take their places on acclaimed international stages. In Canada, his students are regularly selected as members of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, as well as international and nationally leading young artist programs in opera.

Through his COSA leadership, Darryl has established such artistic development events as the Open Opera Workshop, Arias After Work!, and Our Toronto! concerts, all of which energize COSA’s main stage performance events, including fully staged operas (Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra and Bravo Academy for the Performing Arts), Early Music Magic! (with Musicians in Ordinary, and the COSA Custom House Band), revivals (Adrian Ross’ The Shop Girl, Gilbert & Sullivan’s Ruddigore, Michael Balfe’s Satanella), and opera premieres, such as the fusion of Sichuan Opera, the Roman stories of Ovid, and the Stil Naïf of Norbert Palej’s The Art of Love. 

Darryl Edwards’ teaching schedule has included master classes with singers in the Opera Studio Nederland, the Central Conservatory of Music of Beijing, China, Charles University in Prague, and Brazil's University of Rio de Janeiro (Uni-Rio). His own teachers have included soprano Mary Morrison, O.C., Grammy award-winning soprano Lorna Haywood.

With Darryl Edwards' voice students being engaged with major companies and orchestras across Canada, the United States and Europe, these include the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, New York City Opera, Philadelphia Opera, San Francisco Opera, Washington National Opera, Bavarian State Opera – Munich, Zurich Opera, Klagenfurt Opera in Austria, Chicago Lyric Opera, Chicago Opera Theatre, Greek National Opera, and the Canadian Opera Company.

As a tenor Darryl Edwards has appeared to critical acclaim in oratorio, recital, and opera in England, Germany, France, Italy, China, Corsica, the United States, and across Canada. His performing engagements have included Britten’s War Requiem with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Bach and Handel with the Filharmonie Hradec Králové and The Czech Boys’ Choir, the title role in Mozart’s Idomeneo in Mulhouse, France, Orff's Carmina Burana with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, the Mozart Requiem with the Pesaro Philharmonic and Chorus in Italy, Handel's Messiah with the Elmer Iseler Singers, and Mozart concert arias for tenor with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

Critics have praised him as a "rich-voiced, cultured tenor who mastered the high notes effortlessly" (Coburg Tageblatt, Germany), and an "effective communicator who expressed the text with sensitivity and fervour" (Hamilton Spectator). His recordings and broadcasts include performances with American National Public Radio (NPR) (Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with the Ilinois Chamber Orchestra), Canadian Music Centre (Centrediscs) (Harry Somers’ The Fool) the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC Radio 2) in Kodály’s Psalmus Hungaricus with the Calgary Philharmonic and Chorus.