Dr. Lawrence Zazzo

Dr. Lawrence Zazzo is an internationally recognised countertenor as well as historical musicologist. Currently Head of Performance and Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University, he was formerly a vocal professor at both the Royal College and Royal Academy of Music in London and continues to perform in concert halls and opera houses throughout the world (Metropolitan Opera New York, Opera de Paris, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Vienna, Madrid, Munich, Berlin, Beijing, Salzburg, Tokyo). He has made over 25 recordings of rarely-performed Baroque vocal masterpieces as well as premiering new works by Thomas Adès, Jonathan Dove, Missy Mazzoli, Iain Bell, Rolf Riehm, and Geoff Page.

Larry regularly gives interviews in both UK and European media, recently featuring on Radio 3's The Listening Service and In Tune as well as Dutch and Croatian classical radio programmes focusing on his creative practice and musicological research. A council member of both the International Handel Society (Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Gesellschaft) in Halle and the London Handel Institute, he is currently editing the Hallische Händel Ausgabe edition of Handel's The Triumph of Time and Truth for Bärenreiter, and was Principal Investigator on a British Academy grant 'Voiceless?' studying the effects of the pandemic on classical singers across five countries. In the spring of 2024 he visited Princeton University at the invitation of their Humanities Council as an Edward T. Cone Fellow. He has just released a new solo CD funded by the Newcastle Institute for Creative Practice, Weeping Philosophers (Pan Classics), surveying musical depictions of philosophers across the 17th and 18th centuries.