"Orfeo is a huge role, and that Carver sang it so well and held us so spellbound is a great credit and I look forward to seeing far more of him."
Robert Hugill, Planet Hugill

British tenor Rory Carver has a reputation for strongly musical and dramatic performances of operatic, oratorio, and art song repertoire from the early baroque to the present day. He has a particular passion for performing the chamber repertoire with small forces, having featured in one-to-a-part ensemble and solo roles for a wide variety of the UK and Europe’s best-known groups including Les Arts Florissants, Vox Luminis, Early Opera Company, the English Concert, the Academy of Ancient Music, Solomon’s Knot, La Nuova Musica, and I Fagiolini; often singing the high-lying tenor lines of the English and French baroque.

Since performing the title role in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo at the Brighton Early Music Festival while still a student at the Royal College of Music, Rory has gained a wealth of experience in the song and operatic repertoire of the 17th Century. In 2019 he made his recording début in this repertoire as 2nd Priest/1st Augur in John Eccles’ Semele with Cambridge Handel Opera and the Academy of Ancient Music under Julian Perkins. He later returned to the Brighton Early Music Festival in 2020 as Apollo in Marco da Gagliano’s La Dafne. In addition to operatic performances, Rory toured a series of intimate 17th century song programmes to small venues around the UK and Europe with gambist Harry Buckoke and theorbist Jonatan Bougt. Rory has been performing as part of Vox Luminis’ regular team for their touring semi-staged performances of Purcell’s King Arthur and Fairy Queen, most recently at Wigmore Hall and, in 2025, a return to Teatro Real.

Equally at home in music of the 18th century, Rory performs the Evangelist and arias of JS Bach’s John and Matthew Passions, and all of Handel’s oratorio and operatic repertoire. Highlights have included singing arias and ensemble in memorised performances of Bach’s Matthew Passion in Leipzig with Solomon’s Knot, and L’Allegro in Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato in San Sebastián conducted by William Christie. In 2022, Rory started singing haute-contre roles with the title roles of Rameau’s Castor et Pollux at the Sheldonian Theatre and Pygmalion at Théâtre Basse Passière.

Rory studied for an undergraduate degree in Psychology at the University of Warwick before completing a Masters in Vocal Performance at the Royal College of Music in 2018. Rory was a competitor in the 2019 Wigmore Hall/Independent Opera International Song Competition; a finalist in the 2018 Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform; a finalist in the RCM Joan Chissell Schumann Competition; commended in both the London Song Festival and RCM Lieder competitions; and is a former Monteverdi Choir apprentice.

In 2019/20, Rory was a member of Le Jardin des Voix, the young artist programme of Les Arts Florissants, where he received direction from William Christie, Paul Agnew and Sophie Daneman, with performances as Il Podestà in Mozart’s La finta giardiniera in Europe, Asia and Australia. In 2019 Rory joined the Garsington Opera Alvarez Young Artist programme for performances of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride and Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine.

Rory’s studies at the Royal College of Music were supported by a full scholarship as a Douglas and Hilda Simmonds scholar. His roles for the RCM International Opera School included Monsieur Lacouf in Poulenc's Les mamelles de Tirésias (dir: Stephen Unwin) and Damone in the 1732 version of Handel's Acis and Galatea (dir: Lawrence Zazzo). He is grateful to have received generous support from the Exuberant Trust.