Obituary: Baritone Stephen Roberts Dies at 73

By Francisco Salazar

British baritone Stephen Roberts has died at the age of 73.

Roberts was a well-known concert and oratorio performer and a champion of the English choral tradition. He collaborated in particular with such conductors as Sir David Willcocks and Richard Hickox in many performances and recordings. Abroad he toured Spain, Italy, Mexico, Sri Lanka, France, and Hong Kong, among others. He also performed under such conductors as Riccardo Chailly, Sir Simon Rattle, and David Atherton.

Roberts worked with groups specializing in authentic performance techniques and took part in many recordings and tours with such groups as Pro Cantione Antiqua, and Amaryllis Consort, of which he is a founder member.

He became a member of the Global Music Network’s “family” of artists who deliver, principally via the internet, unique programs of new of previously unavailable recordings and he became a professor of vocal studies at the Royal College of Music.

His voice was immortalized on such recordings as Elgar’s Caractacus and The Apostles under Hickox, as well as Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony, Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast with Sir John Pritchard, and Dyson’s Canterbury Pilgrims for Chandos.

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