Darren Abrahams - Course Tutor

Darren has appeared in opera all over the UK and on the continent. His roles include Dorvil in La Scala di Seta, Piféar in Adam’s Si J’étais Roi (Wexford Festival), Alessandro Il Re Pastore, Bastien Bastien und Bastienne (Classical Opera), Ottavio (ETO), Ferrando (Mid Wales Opera), Tamino (OTC), Leo Family Matters (Tête à Tête), The Count of Almaviva The Barber of Seville (Savoy Opera), Frontino L’Equivoco Stravagante, Ernesto Don Pasquale(Garsington Opera). Iopas The Trojans, Shepherd / Spirit Orfeo (ENO), Molqi The Death of Klinghoffer (Scottish Opera / Edinburgh Int. Festival. From 2002 to 2004 Darren appeared at the Batignano Festival in Italy, singing Tracolin in Adam’s Le Toréador, Ritornello in Gassmann’s L’Opera Seria and Il Pulitore in La Dama ed il Pulitore di Damasco, a new opera written by Jonathan Dove for Darren’s voice. Last year Darren reopened the new Young Vic Theatre as Tobias in Dove’s Tobias and the Angel and then toured Tuscany with a new Trilogy also by Jonathan Dove. In 2007 he appeared in Bologna, Italy in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, toured with The Opera Group to the Bregenz Festival and around the UK playing the central role of Christoph Schmalhans in a new opera The Shops by Edward Rushton and sang Don Ramiro in WNO’s new production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola. International concert appearances have included performances with the LPO, the Royal Seville Symphony, the St Petersburg Symphony and The King’s Consort.

Coming from a performance training in theatre and opera, Darren has much personal experience working in the arts which he brings to his work as a trainer and animateur. For the past 15 years he has been regularly involved in leading theatre projects for young people, actively designing and running workshops for mixed ages 5 to 18. He has facilitated theatre summer schools in both the UK and US, creating work that has ranged from improvised scenes to full scale musical productions, in venues as diverse as a skate park in Surrey to a lakeside in Maine.

As an opera singer Darren has worked as a singing animateur for many of the major British opera companies (including The Royal Opera, Glyndebourne, Opera North, WNO and Garsington) in projects ranging from intensive weekends creating a finished performance, to three hour introductory sessions designed to prepare inexperienced opera goers to see a production that evening. Workshops can involve participants ranging from ages 10 to 80 in schools, community centres and universities

In 2002 Darren began his training in Sound Healing and has achieved Level 2 Power of Sound from The School of Sacred Sound, Australia. This training is an intensive course in the use of sound for healing purposes, both on a one to one level and in a group and is designed to open up the natural voice using a mixture of games, breathing techniques and meditation. From this training Darren has co-designed Circular Sounds, an experiential programme based on music, movement and mandala aimed at children. Structured over five modules, it leads participants through an experience aimed at lessening the impact of trauma, physical displacement and poverty by stimulating creativity through the arts. Much of this work has been informed by working with the composer Nigel Osborne and Opera Circus on summer school projects in Bosnia.

Darren holds an LRAM teaching certificate from the Royal Academy of Music and a BA Hons in Drama from the University of East Anglia.