Will Prior, countertenor

Will currently studies a Master’s in Vocal Performance at the Royal College of Music as an ABRSM scholar. He grateful to have been supported also by The Drake Calleja Trust, The Josephine Baker Trust, The William Gibbs Educational Trust, and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust who, in 2024, awarded him the inaugural Dame Janet Baker Award for most promising singer at audition. In November 2025, he won the Roger Higgins 2nd Prize and the Anthony Lowrey Audience Prize at the Hurn Court Opera Singer of the Year competition.

Will is Samling Young Artist 2026 and an Alvarez Emerging Artist 2026 at Garsington Opera, where he will sing in the solo quartet chorus and cover the role of Pisandro/ l’humana Fragilita in their 2026 production of Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria. In June 2025, he sang the principal role of Piero Della Francesca in the RCM Summer production: Jonathan Dove’s opera Seven Angels, directed by Sir Thomas Allen. In September 2026 he will join Royal Academy Opera Course.

Will is passionate about art-song and devising creative recital programmes which push the boundaries of the countertenor repertoire. He is a Britten Pears Young Artist 2025-26, receiving the Chandos Bursary, and a Munster Recitalist 2025-2027.He made his Wigmore Hall debut in June 2025, singing French song in a concert celebrating the extraordinary life and work of Mel Bonis. His work as a Munster Recitalist will see him performing a range of recitals across the country.

Will is also an experienced concert soloist. He recently performed Bach’s Mass in B minor alongside the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at Sinfonia Smith Square. He has sung Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater with The Baroque Orchestra of the Ionian University in Corfu and will return in October 2026 to sing Vivaldi’s Nisi Dominus. Will has also performed as the Alto soloist in oratorio performances with various groups, including The UK Japan Choir, The Oxford Bach Soloists, The Choir of Magdalen College Oxford, and the RCM Baroque Orchestra.

Will has sung in masterclasses with Edith Wiens, Sir Thomas Allen, Malcolm Martineau, Huw Montague Rendall, Carolyn Sampson, and Jeremy Huw Williams. Before moving to London, Will studied Music at Magdalen College Oxford; he sang as an Academical Clerk in Magdalen College Choir and graduated with a first-class degree. Graduating from Oxford and beginning at The Royal College of Music, he worked as a professional ensemble singer, performing with established consorts such as: Gesualdo Six, VOCES8 and Mogens Dahl Kammerkor.