Bryn Terfel
Opera and concert bass-baritone
Sir Bryn Terfel Jones was born on 9 November 1965 in Pant Glas, a small village in Caernarfonshire (now Gwynedd), the son of a farmer. Welsh was his first language, and he grew up singing in chapel and competing at local eisteddfodau, taught traditional Welsh songs by a family friend before he had any formal training. He is now widely regarded as one of the finest bass-baritones of his generation, a singer whose career has taken him from the hills above Caernarfon to the world's greatest opera houses.
Terfel studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London from 1984, graduating in 1989 having already won the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Award and the Guildhall Gold Medal. That same year he came second in the Cardiff Singer of the World competition, winning the Lieder Prize, and in 1990 he made his professional operatic debut with Welsh National Opera as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte. His international career has since spanned the Royal Opera House, the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, in signature roles including Figaro, Wotan, Falstaff and Hans Sachs.
Terfel has never lost his connection to Wales. He founded the Faenol Festival near Snowdonia in 2000, remains a vice president of the Dunvant Male Choir in Swansea, and in 2023 became the first person to sing Welsh at a coronation, performing a Welsh-language Kyrie eleison at the coronation of King Charles III. He was knighted for services to music in 2017.