JULIEN  VAN  MELLAERTS

Classical Singing

Artist Diploma: Royal College of Music, London, UK

Master in Performance: Royal College of Music, London, UK

Bachelor of Music (Hons): University of Otago, New Zealand 

Speaks English, French and Spanish

Winner of the Maureen Forrester Prize and the German Lied Award at the 2018 Concours Musical International de Montréal, Winner of the 2017 Wigmore Hall / Kohn Foundation International Song Competition, the 2017 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, and the 2015 Maureen Lehane Vocal Arts Award, New Zealand / British baritone Julien Van Mellaerts studied at the University of Otago, before joining the International Opera School of the Royal College of Music. On Graduation in 2017 he was awarded the Tagore Gold Medal. He is also a scholar and alumnus of the 2017/2019 Verbier Festival Academy, the 2018 Heidelberger Frühling Lied Academy with Thomas Hampson and the 2018 Bayreuth Festspiele Stipendium, and supported by the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation.

Since graduating, he has toured with James Baillieu for Chamber Music New Zealand and given recitals with Julius Drake at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin, the Enniskillen International Beckett Festival, for the Juan March Foundation, Madrid, and at Temple Song, London. Further recital engagements have included the Lied Festival Victoria de Los Ángeles (LIFE Victoria), Barcelona, with Simon Lepper and appearances at Leeds Lieder, the London Song Festival and Oxford Lieder.

With the Royal Opera and Ballet, he appeared in Elizabeth at the Barbican Hall. Singing under conductors including Alphonse Cemin, Valeri Gergiev, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Fabio Mastrangelo, Mathieu Romano and Sir András Schiff, his current engagements include The Ferryman Curlew River for the Cross-Cultural Year of Russia and Great Britain at St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Moscow, Oreste Iphigénie en Tauride at the Fondation Royaumont, Count Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro for Opera Holland Park, Figaro Le nozze di Figaro at Salzburg Mozart Woche 2020, Papageno Die Zauberflöte at the 2019 Verbier Festival, Mangus The Knot Garden for English Touring Opera, an Opera Gala with the Sevastopol Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven Cantata for the Death of Joseph the Second with Symphonia Varsovia, Brahms German Requiem with Ensemble Aedes and Les Siècles, and A Sea Symphony with the Northern Chamber Orchestra.

Recital engagements include Schubert Die schöne Müllerin with Daniel Gerzenberg at the Piano Salon Christophori, Berlin, Wolf Italienisches Liederbuch with Mary Bevan and Joseph Middleton for Leeds Lieder, The Sexual Outsider – Settings of Walt Whitman for the 2019 London Song Festival, a return to the Wigmore Hall with James Baillieu and concerts with Joseph Middleton for Northern Ireland Opera’s Glenarm Festival of Voice, with Simon Lepper for Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, and with Sergey Rybin in the Crush Room of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Julien Van Mellaerts represented New Zealand at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2019.

STAR Platform’s voice mentor Julien Van Mallaerts