Simon Kirkbride made his international opera début as the High Priest of Jupiter in Hercules at the Aix-en-Provence Festival with Les Arts Florissants, followed by Publio in La Clemenza di Tito in Luxembourg and Baden-Baden. He made his début at Vlaamse Opera as Ratcliffe and Brackenbury in Richard III by Giorgio Battistelli, directed by Robert Carsen, and returned to sing Cadmus in Semele. He made his débuts with English National Opera as the Greek Captain in The Trojans and with Norwegian Opera as the Music Master in Ariadne auf Naxos.

International concert engagements have taken him to Norway for the Christmas Oratorio with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and the Mozart Requiem for the Collegium Musicum, Bergen; to Canada for performances of the St Matthew Passion in Edmonton, the Choral Symphony with L’Orchestre de la Societé Philharmonique, Montreal and Messiah with the Calgary Philharmonic, Kantorei Saarlouis, McGill Chamber Orchestra and the Kitchener-Waterloo Choir; to Switzerland for Berlioz’s Messe solennelle in Lausanne; to Germany for Harapha in Samson and a Gilbert & Sullivan Gala at the Jacques Offenbach Festival in Bad Ems; and to Russia for A Child of Our Time with the Camerata St Petersburg. His concert repertoire includes The Seasons (Haydn), The Creation, Elijah, Samson, The Dream of Gerontius and St John Passion. He sang the world premiere of William Lloyd Webber’s St Francis of Assisi.

Simon Kirkbride has appeared with the Britten Sinfonia, English Chamber Orchestra, Florilegium, London Baroque Orchestra, London Handel Orchestra, London Mozart Players and the Orchestra of St John’s Smith Square under such conductors as Sir Bernard Haitink, John Lubbock, Sir Charles Mackerras, Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Sir David Willcocks.