Kevin Skelton has a multifaceted career performing, directing, choreographing, teaching, and researching. Equally at home on the concert and operatic stage, Kevin specializes in seventeenth-century music, the Bach Evangelist roles, and experimental music theatre. Kevin has performed with some of the world’s finest early music ensembles including Collegium Vocale Gent, L’Arpeggiata, and Concerto Palatino and in numerous theatres and festivals throughout the world including Teatro La Fenice, La Monnaie, Aix-en-Provence, Opéra Royal de Versailles, and the early music festivals in Boston and Utrecht.
In recent years Kevin has focused on exploring the possibilities of integrating the performing arts. His unique facility combining voice and movement has been showcased in productions of Opera Atelier (Canada), Boston Early Music Festival (USA), the Netherlands Reisopera, Veenfabriek (Netherlands), Silbersee (Netherlands), Sasha Waltz & Guests (Germany), Dance Company Nanine Linning (Germany), SPAC (Japan), Company Derashinera (Japan), and the Dutch breakdance company ISH. Kevin has produced numerous videos and live performances under the auspices of his own company ātmā having performed at the Operadagen Rotterdam, Theater aan het Vrijthof in Maastricht, and Festival Les Nuits de Septembre (Festival de Wallonie). Kevin is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto researching new performing practices applicable to the training, creating, directing, and performing of integrative music theatre. He has led workshops in integrative performing training around the world including the contemporary dance school PARTS, the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy, and the Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre in Japan.
On the opera stage Kevin recently performed in Monteverdi’s Orfeo with the Nederlandse Reisopera, Charpentier’s La descente d’Orphée aux Enfers in Poland and Romania, Charpentier’s Medée with Opera Atelier in Toronto and Versailles, Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Toronto and Tokyo, and a new creation at the Greek National Opera.
Upcoming and recent concert appearances include the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht, Zefiro Torna, Weser-Renaissance Bremen, Canto LX, Margaretha Consort, Utrecht and Timisoara Early Music Festivals, the Toronto Consort, Early Music Vancouver and several projects with BachPlus and the Nederlandse Bachvereniging in Belgium and the Netherlands.
The recipient of numerous awards and scholarships, including grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, Kevin has completed graduate programmes in voice, conducting, musicology, and choreography having studied at the University of Toronto, Indiana University, Oxford University, and the contemporary dance school PARTS. His current research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
In 2013 Kevin published his first book: Settle the Score: performer’s analysis for the classical singer.
ātmā 