The career of Michael Chance began, as did that of many of his colleagues, at King’s College, Cambridge, as an alto. He is now known as one of the most distinguished countertenors, active in opera, oratorio and song recitals and guest professor at the Royal College of Music in London. His opera rôles include major baroque repertoire as well as that of military governor in the world première of Judith Weir’s A Night at the Chinese Opera, Giasone in Cavalli’s opera of that name at the Innsbruck Festival and Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Glyndebourne. His international concert career has taken him to Paris, Amsterdam, Stuttgart and Berlin, as well as to the United States, Japan and Australia. He has appeared regularly with the conductors Frieder Bernius, Frans Brüggen, John Eliot Gardiner and Trevor Pinnock, with whom he has collaborated in a number of recordings. He appears with the gamba consort Fretwork, with a series of contemporary works written for this partnership. He sings English lute songs with the lutenist Nigel North and is partnered in song recitals by the pianist Roger Vignoles.