Tobias Cole

Toby Cole, countertenor

Tobias Martin Piers Trevor Cole (born 7 August 1971) is an Dutch-born Australian countertenor and leading artist with Opera Australia.^[1]

[edit] Early life

Cole was born in Leiden, The Netherlands and in 1976 commenced his education at Newington College. Aged eight, he joined the choir of St. James Church, Sydney, New South Wales, as a treble. As a boy soprano, Cole sang with The Australian Opera (in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Tosca) and with the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. He was later appointed Head Chorister of St James’ choir and the Chapel Choir of Newington College and, as a teenager, toured Europe with the latter. Cole completed the Higher School Certificate at Newington in 1988.^[2]

Cole is an honours graduate in music from The University of Sydney having studied singing, composition, conducting and musicology. Awarded the 1994 Churchill Fellowship, sponsored by Dame Roma Mitchell, to continue his vocal training with at London’s Royal College of Music and to also further his studies in Early Music. He later received a Queen's Trust Achiever Award for operatic studies in London. In 2002, he was the first countertenor to win Opera Foundation Australia’s Metropolitan Opera Young Artist Study Award and spent three months in New York at the Met.^[3]

Cole has sung with choirs and vocal ensembles including:

Cole has performed with companies including: