Cameron Burns is Senior Coach in Vocal Performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In 2012 he made his conducting debut with the London Symphony Orchestra “Take a bow” project. He was mentored by Sir Jeffrey Tate and from 2015-2020 he was Kapellmeister of the Staatsoper Hannover where he conducted over 150 performances of opera and ballet. During this time he made his Concertgebouw debut in Amsterdam. He has conducted operas for Chelsea Opera Group, Zomer Opera, Belgium and Opera Trionfo, Amsterdam. Opera highlights include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Die Zauberflöte, Trojahn: Was ihr Wollt, Les dialogue des Carmélites, Owen Wingrave, Don Giovanni, Cosí fan tutte, L’italiana in Algeri, Hänsel und Gretel, Alcina, Greek Passion, L’elisir d’amore and Candide. Guest engagements include Orquestra Clássica do Sul, Portugal, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Cambridge Philharmonic Orchestra and Salomon Orchestra. Symphonic highlights include Strauss Vier letze Lieder, Elgar The Dream of Gerontius, Nielson Symphony 4 and Wagner Wesendock Lieder.
Cameron started his career working freelance as music staff for Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Mariinsky Theatre, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, Reisopera, The Netherlands and the BBC Proms with the John Wilson Orchestra. He was a conducting scholar with the London Symphony Chorus, Chorus Master of Grange Park Opera for three seasons, Assistant Chorus Master of ENO and a guest Chorus Master for Reisopera, The Netherlands. He has accompanied masterclasses and private lessons with many of the world’s greatest singers including Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (at the Metropolitan Opera, New York), Dame Felicity Lott, Sir John Tomlinson and Sherrill Milnes, and he has prepared singers for role debuts at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Wiener Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bayreuther Festspiele, Glyndebourne and La Scala, Milan.
Cameron Burns was raised in Manchester and London but has strong Scottish heritage. He graduated with a starred-first in piano performance from New College, Oxford where he was an academic scholar and organ scholar and he subsequently studied with Mirella Freni at CUBEC in Italy, with Dennis O’Neill at WIAV, and at the National Opera Studio, London. He is an alumnus of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme and the Solti-Perretti Accademia. He studied privately with Graham Johnson and Martin Isepp, and he accompanied lessons regularly for Laura Sarti.