Allan Clayton

Allan Clayton
MBE
Personal details
Alma materSt John's College, Cambridge
Royal Academy of Music
OccupationOpera singer

Allan James Clayton MBE (born 1981) is a British tenor.[1]

Clayton studied at the King's School, Worcester as a chorister at Worcester Cathedral,[1] at St John's College, Cambridge as a choral scholar, and at the Royal Academy of Music in London.[2] He was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2007-09[3] and winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Singer Award in 2018.[4]

Clayton was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to opera.[5]

In 2022, he starred in a Royal Opera House production of Peter Grimes which was hailed as one of the finest opera productions in the UK for decades. The Guardian said "Clayton makes a heartbreaking, supremely lyrical Grimes, singing with remarkable sensitivity and great refinement of tone"[6] and the FT described him as "vocally outstanding in the role, powerful, sensitive and dealing with its idiosyncratic vocal challenges as if they are no problem at all".[7]

  1. ^ a b Christiansen, Rupert (14 May 2009). "Allan Clayton interview: opera's rising star". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016.
  2. ^ Morrison, Richard (28 November 2015). "Allan Clayton: The accidental rise of a superstar tenor". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  3. ^ "Allan Clayton, tenor", BBC Music Magazine, vol. 16, no. 7, 2008
  4. ^ "2018: Singer". Royal Philharmonic Society. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  5. ^ "No. 63377". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 2021. p. B16.
  6. ^ Peter Grimes review – Compelling, unsettling and ravishingly sung The Guardian Tim Ashley 18-Mar-2022
  7. ^ Grimes, Royal Opera — violence and vocal pyrotechnics Financial Times by Richard Fairman 18-Mar-2022