Biography

Brian Bannatyne-Scott was born and educated in Edinburgh. After gaining an MA (Hons) in French and Mediaeval History from St Andrews University, he studied singing at the Guildhall School in London with Laura Sarti, and subsequently with Sir Peter Pears, Dame Elisabeth Schwartzkopf, Hans Hotter and Galina Vishnevskaya.

After debuts at La Fenice, Venice and the Opera di Roma, he sang with Scottish Opera and English National Opera before embarking on an international career which has taken him to a large number of theatres worldwide, including La Scala, Milan, The Royal Opera House. Covent Garden, L’Opéra de Paris, L’Opéra de Lyon, L’Opéra du Rhin, Strasbourg, Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam, Théatre de la Monnaie, Brussels, Le Grand Théatre, Geneva, Bunkamura Theatre, Tokyo and the Metropolitan Opera, New York. His many festival appearances include Edinburgh, Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Bregenz, Holland and the Handel Festival in Halle.

Brian has sung with many notable conductors including Sir Alexander Gibson, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir Colin Davis, Marc Minkowski, Rene Jacobs, Trevor Pinnock, Steuart Bedford, Michel Plasson and Armin Jordan.

More recent successes include the title role in ‘Falstaff’ in Bielefeld and Victoria, BC, Simone in ‘Gianni Schicchi’ at Opera North and Covent Garden, Snug in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and The Beijing Festival, Bottom in a new production of MND with Pacific Opera Victoria in Canada, Foltz in ‘Die Meistersinger’ at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, The Doctor in Adès’ ‘The Exterminating Angel’ at the Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen, Arkel in ‘Pelléas et Mélisande’ at Garsington Opera, The Ghost of Hamlet’s Father in Brett Dean’s ‘Hamlet’ at Glyndebourne and Swallow in ‘Peter Grimes’ at the Opéra de Monte Carlo

Brian is a keen recitalist and has sung most of the great German Lieder repertoire, along with songs in French, Russian, Czech, English and Scots. His extensive discography includes ‘King Arthur’ on DG with Trevor Pinnock, Messiah on DG with Marc Minkowski, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ with Sir Colin Davis on Philips, ‘L’Incoronazione di Poppea’ with Sir Richard Hickox on Virgin, and ‘St Matthew Passion’ with John Butt on Linn. In 2020, he released his first solo CD, ‘Songs of Stevenson’, available online from Birnam CD and Amazon, and in 2022, ‘Songs of Edinburgh’, with Beth Taylor (mezzo), also available online.

Brian was, for 10 years, Honorary Professor of Singing at St Andrews University, and now writes exclusively for the Edinburgh Music Review. Find his Blog and Reviews at www.edinburghmusicreview.com

In 2018, he retired from opera after an accident, but still sings recitals and the occasional concert, but most of his time is spent reviewing and writing. The EMR Blog has been converted into a fascinating book, ‘A Singer’s Life – The Journals of a Modern Troubadour’ which was published at the end of 2025, and which is available from Amazon and selected bookshops.