The GAC at Sudeley Castle 
Season 2025-2026

Jon Morrell, General Manager | Artistic Director
Sunday, Sept 2026, 4:00 pm concert Location: The Chapel

Schubert’s a Winter’s Journey (Winterreise)
Experience one of the greatest song cycles of all time, with  Jon Morrell, tenor, and Anthony Negus CBE, piano
(Running time 75 minutes)

Splendid. Imposing. Dramatic. Powerful. These are just some of the words critics have used to describe the American tenor Jon Morrell. “A splendid tenor of powerful voice and impressive art” wrote the Times Union, he has in just a few years become an acclaimed Otello, Samson, Peter Grimes, Florestan (Fidelio), Siegmund (Die Walküre) and Parsifal. A respected recitalist and soloist, Morrell is a member of the Concordia Foundation in London, and performs regularly in the UK. 

Jon Morrell was born in New York City. At the age of 8, his family moved to Estepona in southern Spain to run the Iberia International School. His mother, an actress/singer who had performed the role of the reporter in the original run of Damn Yankees on Broadway, was the head of the school’s music program and his first teacher. 

Morrell began studying voice at an early age, and made his first stage appearance as Beppino in Leoncavallo’s  I Pagliacci. It was not until later that his voice developed into a heldentenor, first under the guidance of the American Wagnerian Soprano Roberta Knie, and later with the teacher Bill Schuman. Morrell made his professional debut as Siegmund in Die Walkure with the Ithaca Opera. 

As well as having an active singing career, Morrell  is a writer and a playwright, has had a long career producing operas, recitals, concerts and plays, and is the general manager / artistic director of the Garage at Chatham The GAC summer festival  since 2020.  a writer and playwright, his play A Neapolitan Tragedy was published in 2025.

Anthony Negus CBE, Conductor,  has concentrated on works written or influenced by Richard Wagner. He has worked annually with Longborough Festival Opera as its Music Director since 2001, performing acclaimed cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen in 2002/4, 2013 and 2024. In 2017 Negus was awarded the Goodall Award by The London Wagner Society for "his devotion to the works of Richard Wagner". In 2025 Sir Nicholas Kenyon noted “the outstanding musical direction of Wagner supremo Anthony Negus” in his review of Longborough's production of Pelléas et Mélisande.

In the last decade, Negus has been invited by Melbourne Opera (MO) to conduct German opera, especially Wagner, with four hugely successful performances of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in 2025 at the Royal Exhibition Building for which he was awarded the Opera Chaser Critics Award for Outstanding Conductor. In 2023 he conducted two Ring cycles in Bendigo, Victoria, which also earned him the Outstanding Conductor Opera Chaser Award. His 2018 Tristan und Isolde for MO won the coveted Green Room Award for best conductor.

Born to parents who were both professional musicians, Negus was educated at Stowe Schoolbefore studying clarinet and piano at the Royal College of Music and going on to read Music at Christ Church, Oxford.His first experiences of working as a répétiteur and conducting opera were at the Else Mayer-Lismann Opera Workshop and the London Opera Centre.He went on to study conducting with Franco Ferrara in Sienna and with George Hurst in the UK . He assisted Reginald Goodall on The Valkyrie in 1970 at Sadlers Wellsbefore working as a repetiteur at Wuppertal, where he made his conducting debut with D'Albert'sTiefland. He went on to work as an assistant conductor at Bayreuth Festival and Hamburg State Opera. As a member of the Music Staff of Welsh National Opera (WNO) between 1976 and 2012, he assisted conductors including Sir Richard Armstrong, Sir Charles Mackerras, Vladimir Jurowski and Pierre Boulez.With WNO, Negus assisted Boulez on Pelléas et Mélisande and Goodall on Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal and The Valkyrie and conducted over 150 performances in the UK, Germany, France, Japan and China.

In 1983, aged 36, he conducted the WNO production of Parsifal when Goodall fell ill.Wolfgang Wagner, Head of the Bayreuth Festival and the composer's grandson, came to a performance and said: "It is absolutely astounding what Anthony has done. I was impressed with the love he brought to all aspects of the opera. It was a great personal triumph for him."

Negus has conducted Wagner with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Glyndebourne Festival, Grange Park Opera and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at the Wellington Festival

Negus was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2026 King's Birthday Honours for services to Opera, particularly Mozart and Wagner, and to Young Artists