“they had not only the musical class, but also the inner relationship to interpret the “Winterreise” movingly”
Antje Doßmann, Neue Westfälische.
About
Praised for a “superbly voiced instrumental partnership of his singer” (Sussex Express) and “spectacular, sensitive and vivid accompaniment” (The Latest), 30-year-old British Pianist George Ireland enjoys a thriving career, in demand both as a recital partner with some of the finest singers of his generation, and as a repetiteur in Opera and Choral music. From a working-class, non-musical home, he began to play the piano from scratch, self-taught at the age of 14, and at 25 graduated with distinction from the Royal College of Music where he studied collaborative piano under Simon Lepper and Roger Vignoles. He also studied conducting, continuo and vocal coaching, and was the holder of the Kendall Taylor Award for outstanding British Pianists.
Song:
A Samling Artist, George is the winner of the 2024 New Voices Competition at the Northern Aldborough Festival with mezzo-soprano Judith Lebreuilly, adjudicated by Sir John Tomlinson, Edward Gardner, and Sholto Kynoch. With mezzo-soprano Rebecca Leggett, he won the 2022 London Song Festival Masterclass and British Art Song Competition with Sir Thomas Allen. He also accompanied soprano Oksana Lepska’s winning recitals at the 2022 National Mozart Competition in London and the Kathleen Ferrier Award-winning recitals of countertenor Hugh Cutting and soprano Jessica Cale in 2021 and 2020.
In 2025, he greatly looks forward to making his debuts at the Edinburgh International Festival and Wiener Konzerthaus with Hugh Cutting, as well as recording two English song discs with soprano Caroline Taylor and tenor Guy Cutting.
As a young artist of the 2022-24 Oxford Lieder season, George joined Sopranos Jessica Cale, Caroline Taylor and Emily Christina Loftus at the 2021, 2022 and 2023 festivals. With Hugh Cutting he has enjoyed live performances on Radio 3’s In Tune, recording at BBC’s Maida Vale Studios, a greatly-acclaimed recital at the Brighton Festival and a recital on the Harpsichord at the Theatre Grévin in Paris.
2024 saw his Italian debut at the Tuscan Crete Senesi festival alongside Guy Cutting in collaboration with Collegium Vocale Gent, preceded by two recitals at New College, Oxford, and at Acland Burghley School in London for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He also returned to the Brighton Festival with Hugh Cutting and Rebecca Leggett for their acclaimed ‘South Country’ Sussex-themed programme. For St Paul’s Opera he has appeared in a Gala Recital alongside Tenor David Butt Philip, Baritone David Stout and Sopranos Alison Langer and Rainelle Krause.
In late 2024 he joined Baritone Theo Perry for his second Winterreise in Lewes, having given his first performance of the work with Soprano Daniela Bechley in Bielefeld in 2019. He also appeared with Tenor and fellow IVC Semifinalist Michael Bell for a recital of English Song at the Lichfield Festival.
He enjoys a fruitful partnership with Opera Prelude, appearing in recitals alongside their artists Dan D’Souza, Catherine Hooper, Stephen Whitford, Sam Young and Alexandra Meier, and earlier this year accompanied Dame Felicity Lott’s Masterclass with Sopranos Georgie Malcolm, Natasha Agarwal, Eyra Norman and Phoebe Smith.
Prior to, during, and since his studies at the RCM, George has taken coaching and masterclasses with Sir Thomas Allen, Roderick Williams, Dame Sarah Connolly, Felicity Palmer, Ann Murray, Helmut Deutsch, Errolyn Wallen and Amanda Roocroft.
Opera:
As a repetiteur, George has worked for the Youth Companies of the Royal Opera House and Glyndebourne, and in summer 2024 worked on Daughter of the Regiment at Grange Park Opera with Claire Levacher, The Barber of Seville at Waterperry Opera Festival with Charlotte Corderoy, and was Music Director for Die Fledermaus at St Paul’s Opera. He has accompanied the BBC Symphony Chorus in rehearsal of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony led by Mariana Rosas, the choirs of various Cambridge colleges in the Missa Solemnis conducted by Edward Gardner, and often joins Tenebrae for outreach projects at West-London state schools. In Autumn 2024, he conducted an acclaimed performance of Eugene Onegin with Hampstead Garden Opera, for which project he was also repetiteur under Oliver Cope. Further engagements have included Hänsel und Gretel at HGO with Thomas Payne (2023), Robinson Crusoe and Constance at West Green House Opera with David Parry (2023), Mansfield Park at Waterperry and on tour with Ashley Beauchamp and Bradley Wood (2022 and 2023), and The Rake’s Progress at British Youth Opera with Lionel Friend (2018). He returns to Grange Park and West Green this summer, on Taj Mahal with George Jackson, and on I Capuleti e i Montecchi with John Andrews.
He enjoys regular work as a choral accompanist and audition pianist, frequently accompanying voice lessons in London, and is on the staff at the Royal College of Music and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.