Born in New Zealand, Paul Whelan studied at the Wellington Conservatoire and the Royal Northern College of Music, where he won several prestigious prizes and scholarships. In 1993 he won the Lieder Prize in the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. 

He pursues an active concert and recital career.  Engagements have included concerts under Rattle, Bertini, Nagano, Hickox, Menuhin, Sinaisky, Olmi and Willcocks.   He has performed with many leading UK orchestras, as well as with the RIAS Berlin Chamber Choir and the Budapest Symphony Orchestra.  He has given recitals at the Wigmore Hall, St David's Hall in Cardiff, the Blackheath Concert Halls, the Cheltenham Festival, for BBC Pebble Mill, all accompanied by Julius Drake; and a recital at the Châtelet Theatre in Paris, accompanied by David Harper. Recordings include A Midsummer Night's Dream with the LSO under Sir Colin Davis (Philips), Kurt Weill's Silbersee under Markus Stenz (BMG) recordings with the BBC Philharmonic for Chandos and the BBC Scottish Symphony for Hyperion. 

Highlights of recent seasons have included his debuts at Covent Garden, the Netherlands Opera and the Metropolitan Opera as Schaunard; his debut at the Munich State Opera as Marcello; his debut for the Welsh National Opera singing the title role in The Doctor of Myddfai, a new commission by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (also recorded); his debut at the ENO as Shaklovity Khovanshchina; the title roles in Don Giovanni and Eugene Onegin for the Australian Opera; Marcello in La Boheme for Glyndebourne Touring Opera; Flint Billy Budd for the Geneva Opera (recorded by Television Suisse Romande); Figaro in a new production of The Marriage of Figaro for Scottish Opera; Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte for Dublin Grand Opera; Masetto Don Giovanni in Bordeaux; Demetrius in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream for the Australian Opera, as well as in Tourcoing, Montpellier, Nimes and at the Edinburgh Festival; and in the 97/98 season debuts at the Bastille as Flint in Billy Budd, the Count in The Marriage of Figaro in Santiago, Silvio in I Pagliacci in Nantes; his return to the Metropolitan Opera as Ned Keene, to Munich for Marcello and to The Royal Opera for performances of Tchaikovsky’s The Enchantress at the Royal Festival Hall, conducted by Valery Gergiev; and concerts in Israel and in the title role of Handel’s Saul with the RIAS Berlin Chamber Choir, Guglielmo Cosi and Belcore L’elsir d’amore at the New Israeli Opera, a return to the Bastille as Marcello, the Husband in Amelie va au Bal, Gil in Le Secret de Suzanne, Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia in Nantes.  Recent engagements include Apollo in Gluck’s Alceste at the Netherlands Opera, Olivier in Capriccio for Opera Australia, the Count in Figaro with Scottish Opera, Christus in a staged version of the St John Passion at English National Opera and Escamillo in Carmen with WNO, Schaunard in a new production of Leoncavallo’s La Boheme for English National Opera, performances of Theodora with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Musikkollegium Winterthur, St. Matthew Passion with the CBSO, his first Mephistopheles (La Damnation de Faust) with the BBC Philharmonic, St John Passion with SCO, his debut as the Four Villains in Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Canterbury, New Zealand and the premiere recordings of Cecil Coles’ Fra Giacomo (BBC Scottish Symphony/Martyn Brabbins) for Hyperion and Edgar Bainton’s An English Idyll (BBC Philharmonic/Brabbins) for Chandos. 

Recent engagements include Gurrelieder with the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia, Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Elgar’s Apostles (BBC Philharmonic), the world premiere of Michael Williams’s The Prodigal Child for NBR New Zealand Opera, Midsummer Night’s Dream in Pittsburgh, Rinaldo in Munich, Alceste at the Dresden Festival, L’elsir d’amore at the New Zealand Festival, St Matthew Passion with English Chamber Orchestra, Delius Sea Drift in Osaka, Mozart Requiem with the Santa Cecilia Choir and Orchestra, La Damnation de Faust at the Brighton Festival and a return to Opera  Australia to perform the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro.  Future engagements include the Speaker in The Magic Flute, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Britten's 5 Canticles and a semi-staged version of St. Matthew Passion for the Perth International Festival, and a return to NBR New Zealand Opera to perform the title role in Don Giovanni.

For Paul's testimonial, click here.