Toby Spence

Toby Spence (born 22 May 1969, London) is a British tenor active internationally on the concert platform, in the opera house and in recordings across a wide range of classical music.

Spence was born into a musical family that had once owned the London piano manufacturer Squire Pianos. His father was a doctor, and his mother a pianist who worked as an archivist at the Royal College of Music. She had also been personal assistant to Walter Legge and Yehudi Menuhin, and artists and musicians were regular lunch guests at the family home. He was educated at Uppingham School and gained an honours degree in music at New College, Oxford, where he was a choral scholar and his teachers included Edward Higginbottom. He continued his vocal studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied with David Pollard with whom he has continued vocal studies.

Spence's professional debut was in 1995 as Idamante in Welsh National Opera's production of Idomeneo, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras; he repeated the role later the same year in Munich after only one day of rehearsal. Other early engagements included La Calisto with René Jacobs in Brussels, Mitridate in Mitridate Rè di Ponto under Roger Norrington at the Mozart week in Salzburg, and subsequently at the Salzburg Summer Festival, Almaviva in Rossini's The Barber of Seville at the English National Opera, and David in Die Meistersinger under Antonio Pappano at La Monnaie in Brussels. At the same time he was performing on the concert platform in repertoire ranging from Beethoven's Missa Solemnis to Saint François d'Assise by Messiaen.