Born in Adelaide, South Australia, Grant sang as a boy treble as the Third Boy in The Magic Flute with the State Opera of South Australia and the boys’ chorus of the Cameron Mackintosh production of Oliver in 1983.
As a child he was a versatile musician, studying organ, flute, guitar, clarinet and piano. While contemplating a career as a rock guitarist and vocalist, he was accepted as a classical flautist onto the Bachelor of Music course at the University of Adelaide. As a second study he chose to have singing lessons, and thus his classical voice was discovered by Vivienne Haynes, who convinced him to give up the flute and train as a baritone. He subsequently gained straight Distinction grades in the Honours degree in voice, winning quite a few local awards in the process.
After a few years as a teacher, choral conductor, session musician, and guitarist/vocalist in bands he won the Elder Overseas Award – a fully funded scholarship to continue his studies at the opera school at the Royal College of Music in London. He was subsequently supported by a Senior Exhibitioner scholarship, the Royal Overseas League, Lies Askonas Prize, Madeleine Finden Trust, the International Mozart Competition, the Tait Memorial Trust and the Victoria League for Commonwealth Friendship. He was awarded a Junior Fellowship of the Royal College of Music in 1999.
Grant Doyle combines Macbeth’s monstrous pessimism, his courage and agonising moments of self-knowledge with disarming directness. This is a commanding performance, and Doyle has the vocal resources and dark Italianate inscrutability to give the role full measure.
Peter Reed, Classical Source
In 2001 he was accepted as an inaugural member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. During his time there he understudied operatic stars in major roles in the baritone repertoire, and performed minor principal roles in productions such as Rigoletto, Madama Butterfly and Rusalka.
Furthermore, as part of the programme, he had the opportunity of working with and learning from the most respected luminaries in the industry including Sir Colin Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Edward Downes, Sir Mark Elder, Antonio Pappano, Bernard Haitink, Sir Thomas Allen, John Copley, Sergei Lieferkus, Elena Contrubas, Simone Young and Francesca Zambello.
Grant is now an established singer maintaining a busy career in opera, oratorio, recital and recording. On the stage he has a versatile repertoire including roles in grand opera, contemporary works, operetta and music theatre.
For the Royal Opera he has performed over a dozen roles on the main stage and has appeared regularly in the Linbury Studio Theatre in chamber operas and contemporary works. He now has a credit list of 140 productions throughout UK, Europe, Asia and Australia, including companies such as Opera Holland Park, Garsington Opera, English Touring Opera, The Grange Festival, Teatro Real in Madrid, Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, Opera North, Scottish Opera, Deutche Oper Berlin Glyndebourne and Opernhaus Zurich.
First in an ensemble of equals is Grant Doyle, a busy singer who couples a gorgeous baritone with the best diction on the circuit.
What’s On Stage, Mark Valencia, 13 July 2018
His performed repertoire includes the title roles in The Barber of Seville, Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin and recently Rigoletto and Macbeth as well as Count Almaviva Marriage of Figaro, Forester Cunning Little Vixen, Orestes Iphigénie en Tauride, Zurga Les pecheurs de perles, Marcello La bohème and Ping Turandot.
Doyle’s sonorous, majestic baritone served a characterisation that moved from affronted arrogance to desperate pain without varnishing one or blunting the other….Who says you need to be at a major opera house to hear singing of this quality?
Richard Bratbury, The Arts Desk, 25 April 2016
As a busy concert soloist, Grant has performed Carmina Burana with the Australian Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, the Bach Choir at the Royal Festival Hall, Royal Philharmonic under Daniele Gatti, Crouch End Festival Chorus at the Barbican, the Ulster Orchestra as well as for Raymond Gubbay at the Royal Albert Hall. Other performances include Bach Christmas Oratorio (Copenhagen Philharmonic), Elijah (Blackheath Halls), Brahms’ Ein Deutches Requiem (Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra; Bach Choir and Philharmonia at Westminster Cathedral), Britten’s War Requiem (Hertfordshire Chorus; Huddersfield Choral Society, Sinfonia ViVa), Fauré Requiem (Hallé Orchestra), Vaughan-Williams A Sea Symphony (Crouch End Festival Chorus at the Barbican), Christus/Arias St Matthew Passion (CBSO), Kurt Weill Seven Deadly Sins (The Hallé/Sir Mark Elder), Tippett’s A Child of Our Time (CEFC) and Christus St John Passion (Irish Chamber Orchestra), and Messiah with the Nottingham Harmonic Choir, at York Minster and also with the Royal Choral Society at the Royal Albert Hall.
He appears regularly as a soloist in Raymond Gubbay concerts such as Classical Spectacular and Last Night of the Proms as well as concerts with Sinfonia ViVa including their Darley Park outdoor concerts to audiences of over 30,000.
Grant Doyle is a stunning Orestes, occupying the role with a profound sense of fate, all the more devastating for its restraint. Vocally, he doesn’t hold back, unleashing one of the smoothest, most agile baritones I have heard in a while.
Harriet Cunningham, The Sydney Morning Herald
More recently, his engagements have included Enric the world premiere of The Skating Rink by David Sawer, commissioned by Garsington Opera, Small Prisoner/Cekunov From the House of the Dead for the ROH, Rigoletto for Opera de Bauge, Macbeth for ETO, Robert in Tchaikovksy’s Iolantha for Opera Holland Park, Vater in Mark Anthony Turnage’s Coraline for Opernhaus Zurich, Belfiore in Un Giorno di regno for Garsington Opera and Old Sam in Bernstein’s A Quiet Place for the ROH.