ANDREW FYSH
Bass
Originally from Hobart, Tasmania, where he began his singing career over forty years ago as a treble at the city’s Anglican cathedral, Andrew has considerable experience as both consort singer and soloist. Church music has featured continuously throughout Andrew’s musical journey: in 2005–06, while living in London, Andrew sang with the Choir of the London Oratory, England’s pre-eminent Catholic church choir, and in recent years has sung with the choirs of St James’ Church, Sydney and St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney.
Now based in Canberra, Andrew has appeared as soloist with all of the city’s major choirs: recent performances include Handel Israel in Egypt, Handel Messiah, Haydn Nelson Mass, Mozart Requiem, and Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem. He has also been a guest artist with Luminescence Chamber Singers and Adhoc Baroque, and has performed at the Canberra International Music Festival with the Song Company, Bach Akademie Australia, Luminescence Chamber Singers and Clarion.
Andrew’s particular interest lies in Early music, nurtured through fourteen years as a member of Melbourne’s acclaimed Ensemble Gombert, directed by John O’Donnell, with whom he toured Europe (2004, 2006, 2015) and North America (2009). As a guest artist with The Song Company under Roland Peelman, he appeared many times in both concert and recording, including a critically acclaimed solo-voice recording of Schütz Der Schwanengesang in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall in 1996. More recently, Andrew has turned his Early-music interest to the production of high-quality performing editions of little-known Franco-Flemish Renaissance polyphony, with a particular focus on the works of the Netherlandish composer Pierre de Manchicourt (c.1510–1564). Queen’s Phoenix — a Sydney-based eight-voice ensemble that he co-founded with Brooke Shelley — released a recording of these editions in 2021, and was invited to perform at the 2022 Festival of Voices in Hobart.
Over the past decade, Bach has featured increasingly prominently in Andrew’s singing career. As bass soloist with Canberra Bach Ensemble and the Sydney Cantata Project, and a founding member of Bach Akademie Australia, Andrew has performed more than fifty cantatas, two Lutheran masses, St John and St Matthew Passions, and the Christmas, Easter and Ascension Oratorios. Later this month, in the lead-up to Canberra Bach Ensemble’s performance at Bachfest in Leipzig, he has been invited to be the bass soloist at the monthly Cantata Service at the Westerkerk in Amsterdam, and while in The Netherlands he will be undertaking vocal coaching with internationally renowned Baroque specialist, Peter Kooij.
