Répétiteur

Adam McDonagh

Biography

Dublin-born Adam McDonagh is a multiple award-winning pianist, conductor, and countertenor. Previous répétiteur experience includes productions of Faust, La bohème, Salome, La traviata (Irish National Opera Studio 2023-24), Der Schauspieldirektor (Buxton International Festival), Handel’s Susanna (DIT Conservatory), Owen Wingrave (Opera Collective Ireland), Le nozze di Figaro (Glasthule Opera), L’elisir d’amore (Lismore Opera Festival), and Suor Angelica (Empyrean Ensemble). Upcoming engagements include chorus répétiteur for productions of Opera Holland Park’s Così fan tutte, La fanciulla del West and Turandot, INO’s Norma, and performing at the West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival. 

Alongside his work as a répétiteur and vocal coach, Adam regularly performs chamber music recitals with singers and instrumentalists and has performed in festivals and venues in Ireland and the UK, including the Wigmore Hall in London. He is a Samling Artist, and has accompanied masterclasses with Tara Erraught, Elīna Garanča, Ann Murray, Ryan Speedo Green, Stuart Skelton, Ailish Tynan, Maxim Vengerov and Peter Whelan. 

Adam trained as a Young Artist répétiteur at the National Opera Studio (NOS) in London, and is an alumnus of the INO Studio and the Georg Solti Accademia. He graduated with a BMus (Performance) from DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama, an MPhil in Music Studies from Cambridge University, and an MMus (Performance) in Répétiteur at TU Dublin Conservatoire supported by the inaugural INO Répétiteur Scholarship. 

Adam won the Feis Ceoil Orchestral Conducting competition in 2024, and has recently conducted the RTÉ Concert Orchestra for a RTÉ Lyric FM studio recording, featuring music by Mozart, Sibelius and Ravel. While training at NOS, he assisted conductors for performances at Welsh National Opera, Opera North, Scottish Opera and with the English National Opera orchestra. He has also conducted Mozart’s Requiem and Coronation Mass with the Queens’ College Music Society Chorus & Orchestra, in West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge. He has had conducting masterclasses with Sian Edwards, David Brophy, Ragnar Rasmussen, as well as opera conducting coaching with Alexander Ingram, Kamal Khan, Proinnsías Ó Dúinn and Fergus Sheil. 

Adam was a member of the Wexford Festival Opera ‘Factory’ and made his role début as ‘Oberon’ in their community opera production of Britten’s A (Little) Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which he was hailed as having a ‘mellifluous voice’. Adam won 2nd Prize in the Concours International Léopold Bellan in Paris. Closer to home, he won 1st Prize in the Joseph O’Mara Cup and reached the finals of the Dramatic Cup and Gervase Elwes Cup in Dublin Feis Ceoil. He has recently been awarded funding by the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Grants Scheme to continue his vocal studies with James Platt and Anna Devin.