Gidon Saks

[1] In order to avoid the military conscription which was mandatory for all white South African males at the time, he moved to the U.K. to study at the Royal Northern College of Music, after a year at opera school in Cape Town.

[2] At the age of 22, at the urging of his voice teacher in Toronto, Patricia Kern, he debuted in Brian Macdonald's production of The Mikado at the 1982 Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada, which went on tour as well as being televised.

[2] He also directed Georges Bizet's Carmen, Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Die Zauberflöte with the Berlin Opera Academy.

[4] In an interview, Saks spoke about his early love of Leontyne Price's sound, as well as being impressed with Franco Corelli, Brigitte Fassbaender and "inevitably" Maria Callas.

[1] Recordings include the title roles in Handel's Saul and Hercules, Claggart (Billy Budd), Apollyon and Lord Hate-Good (The Pilgrim's Progress, Ralph Vaughan Williams).

He gives vocal master classes at various establishments, was a member of staff at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent in Belgium and currently teaches at Universität der Künste in Berlin.