Icelandic baritone Oddur Jonsson studied Master Opera and Master Lied and Oratorio with Prof. Andreas Macco and Prof. Martha Sharp at Mozarteum University Salzburg, where he graduated with distinction. He was also awarded the Lilli Lehmann Medal from the Mozarteum International Foundation. He made his debut at the Icelandic Opera as Rodrigo in Verdi’s Don Carlo, for which he was awarded the Brightest Hope in the category classical and contemporary music and nominated as the male singer of the year at the Icelandic Music Awards. He has sung the roles of Conte Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Belcore in L’elisir d’amore, Kaiser Overall in Ullmann’s Kaiser von Atlantis, Oreste in Gluck’s Iphigènie en Tauride, Ned Keene in Peter Grimes and The Herald in The Burning Fiery Furnace by B. Britten.
On the concert stage he made his Paris debut in February 2015, singing Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Paris Opera Ballet, in a new John Neumeier production. He has sung works by J. S. Bach: The Christmas Oratorio, St. John’s Passion, the B-minor Mass and Cantatas including Ich habe genug; Masses and Cantatas by G. P. Telemann, W. A. Mozart, M. Haydn and C. Gounod.
As a recitalist he has sung Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen by G. Mahler, Liederkreis op. 39 by Schumann, Liebeslieder- Walzer by J. Brahms, Let us Garlands bring by G. Finzi and Lieder by F. Schubert, H. Wolf, H. Pfitzner and R. Strauss.
In 2014 he received the prize for the best Lied and Oratorio Performer and the Schubert Prize in the Francesc Viñas Competition in Barcelona. The same year he was a finalist in the International Mozart Competition and the Belvedere Competition. In 2013 he won first prize in the International Brahms Competition in Pörtschach, Austria, third prize in the International Schubert Lied-Duo Competition in Dortmund, Germany and third prize in Concorso Musica Sacra in Rome, Italy. In 2011 he received a scholarship and the Audience Prize from the Walter and Charlotte Hamel Foundation in Hannover, and a scholarship from the Gianna-Szell Foundation in Salzburg.
Oddur Jonsson was invited to take part in the Schubert Residency at the Aix-en-Provence Festival with Matthias Goerne and Markus Hinterhäuser. He has also taken part in masterclasses with Roberta Alexander, Kristján Jóhannsson, Tom Krause, Thomas Moser, Ruggiero Raimondi, Alexander Schmalcz, Peter Schreier, Kristinn Sigmundsson, Margaret Singer, Richard Stokes, Kiri Te Kanawa, Gerd Uecker and Breda Zakotnik.