Pianist / Répétiteur
Toby is a highly experienced répétiteur and coach, having worked with several of the UK’s leading opera companies. Opera credits as music staff include: Semele (Glyndebourne Opera); Ainadamar [UK premiere] (Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera); Marx in London! [UK premiere], Carmen, Il Trittico, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Candide, Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, Falstaff, Mavra, The Miserly Knight, The Gondoliers, Utopia Ltd. (Scottish Opera); Pelleas et Melisande (Byre Opera); Il Segreto di Susanna, Zanetto, Rita, Dido & Aeneas, The Angel Esmeralda (world premiere), Opera Makers 2020 (world premiere), Opera Scenes Autumn 2019 and Spring 2021 (GSMD). Toby looks forward to making his debut at the Buxton International Fesitval in 2024, directing Haydn’s La Canterina from the keyboard, as well as working as assistant conductor and répétiteur on Verdi’s Ernani.
As an accompanist, Toby has played in venues including The Barbican, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and St. Giles’ Cathedral (Edinburgh), for artists including Wallis Giunta, Zoe Drummond, Dima Bawab, Isabel Pfefferkorn, Aidan Coburn, and Adam Maxey; he has accompanied masterclasses with Sir Thomas Allen, Thomas Quasthoff (Edinburgh International Festival), Wallis Giunta, Neal Davies, Andrew Staples, Nicholas Mulroy, Yvonne Howard, and Roger Vignoles.
Equally experienced as a solo pianist, Toby has performed solo recitals across the UK, as well concerti under conductors including Natalia Luis Bassa (Grieg Piano Concerto), Graham Walker (Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5), and Joel Sandelson (Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue). He was a prize-winner in the Cambridge University Music Society (CUMS) Concerto Competition in 2016 and 2017, and won first prize at the national finals of the EPTA UK Piano Competition 2013. Toby studied with the late Masayuki Tayama; he has participated in masterclasses with Stephen Hough, Leon McCawley, Tom Poster, Libor Novacek and Carlo Grante.