Roderick Williams is active in the opera house, on the concert platform and in recital, encompassing a repertoire from the baroque to world premieres.

He has enjoyed close associations with Opera North and Scottish Opera, and forthcoming engagements take him to English National Opera for Papageno/Die Zauberflöte and to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden for Schaunard/La bohème. For Opera North his roles have included the title role in Don Giovanni, The Count/Le nozze di Figaro, Guglielmo/Così fan tutte, Figaro/Il barbiere di Siviglia and Ned Keene/Peter Grimes. For Scottish Opera roles have included Marcello/La bohème and Lord Byron in the word premiere of Sally Beamish’s Monster. Other notable world premieres have included David Sawer’s From Morning to Midnight and Martin Butler’s A Better Place for English National Opera, as well as Alexander Knaifel’s Alice in Wonderland and Michel van der Aa’s After Life for Netherlands Opera.

Among Roderick Williams’ many performances of opera in concert are recent appearances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Tippett’s The Knot Garden (Barbican) and Birtwistle’s The Second Mrs Kong (Royal Festival Hall). He has also sung the role of Eddie in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek for the BBC. He has taken major roles in conductor Richard Hickox’s semi-staged performances of opera, including Britten’s Gloriana (Aldeburgh, 2003), Walton’s Troilus and Cressida and most of the Vaughan Williams operas. Other concert performances include Henze, Strauss, Stravinsky and Wagner (Donner in Das Rheingold for ENO).

Roderick Williams has sung concert repertoire with all the BBC orchestras, and many other ensembles including the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Russian National Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, and Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. Recent successes include Britten’s War Requiem with the Philharmonia, Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius in Toulouse, Tippett’s The Vision of St Augustine with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the 2005 BBC Proms, Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and the world premiere of Birtwistle’s The Ring Dance of the Nazarene with VARA Radio (repeated at the BBC Proms).

As well as his engagements for ENO and the Royal Opera, plans include Billy Budd with the London Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding, Pilgrim in Vaughan Williams’s The Pilgrim’s Progress with the Philharmonia, as well as concerts with the OAE, RIAS Kammerchor, Britten Sinfonia, RSNO, and Polyphony.

He is also an accomplished recital artist who can be heard at Wigmore Hall, at many festivals, and on Radio 3, where he has appeared on Iain Burnside’s Voices programme. His numerous recordings include Vaughan Williams, Berkeley and Britten operas for Chandos, Verdi’s Don Carlos (conducted by Bernard Haitink) for Philips, and two discs of English song with pianist Iain Burnside for Naxos. Roderick Williams is also a composer and has had works premiered at the Wigmore and Barbican Halls, the Purcell Room and live on national radio.