Thursday Lunchtime Concert – Roelof Temmingh, Matthew McKinney

South African pianist Roelof Temmingh enjoys a multi-faceted career including solo work, chamber music, art song, arrangement/composing and working with other composers. This varied career has taken him to stages such as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall. He is a Young Artist of the Musicians’ Company. At the Royal College of Music he was a Constant/Kit Lambert Fellow and Tagore Gold Medalist.  His past piano teachers include Dina Parakhina, Nigel Clayton and Paul Gulda. 

Winner of the 2024 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Scottish tenor Matthew McKinney is quickly establishing himself as an exciting and sensitive young singer. He recently made his debut at Carnegie hall as a Song Studio Artist, and he looks forward to returning to Glyndebourne in summer 2025 as a Jerwood Young Artist. In the Autumn, he will make his role debut there as Peter in the world premier of Mark Anthony Turnage’s new opera The Railway Children.

He spent summer 2024 at Glyndebourne Festival as a chorister, before returning to English Touring Opera, where he performed Beethoven’s An Die Ferne Geliebte as part of the newly compiled work Do Not Take My Story for a Fairy Tale. He also covered the Tsar in a new English translation of Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden. Before this, he recorded Gastone La traviata (OperaGlass Works) and Rodolfo La bohème on Robin Norton-Hale’s forthcoming feature produced by Finite Films. Other operatic roles include Damon Acis & Galatea for Ryedale Festival in 2022 and covering Henrik A Little Night Music at Opera North, having sung the role for Buxton International Festival in 2021. In 2023 he sang Luigino Il viaggio a Reims and Rustighello Lucrezia Borgia in new productions for ETO. He is currently covering the role of Bardolfo in Glyndebourne’s Falstaff.

As a concert soloist, performances include Bach St John Passion, Handel Messiah, Haydn Creation, Mendelssohn Elijah, Mozart Requiem, Puccini Messe Di Gloria (The Orchestra of Sottish Opera), and Macmillan’s All the Hills and Vales Along. April 2025 saw Matthew debut as a step out soloist for the Dunedin Consort’s tour of Bach’s St Matthew Passion.

Following the success of the Ferrier, Matthew and his duo partner Roelof Temmingh will perform their recital programme ‘Finding Freedom’ throughout the UK and Ireland in 2025. They are thrilled to have the opportunity to further explore their love of song repertoire.

Matthew is a graduate of The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he was gratefully supported by the Robertson Trust, John Mather Rising Star scholarship, Help Musicians (Ian Fleming) Award, Sir James Caird Travelling Scholarship, WFT Anderson Scholarship, The Underwood Trust Scholarship and The Dale Scholarship.

Alongside his growing career as a soloist, Matthew has a love for community music and music outreach. He hopes to continue growing this part of his career for as long as he works as he feels this is a core part of who he is.