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The Canadian-British bass-baritone, Andrew Mahon, who grew up in Toronto, began singing in church choirs at the age of 6. By the time he was in college at the University of Toronto, he was singing in choirs professionally as a bass-baritone. He didn not initially have the ambition of becoming a professional singer, but singing work continued to come his way, and eventually it became his career.
In 2009, Andrew Mahon moved to England, which maintains a robust choral tradition, and for over a decade he was able to sing sacred music in a liturgical setting on an almost daily basis. He sang in the choir of Wells Cathedral in Somerset before moving to London in 2013 to pursue further opportunities with English and German chamber choirs, alongside his solo career. He prioritized liturgical singing, which he found to be the most fulfilling kind of singing. Most of his work was in the Church of England, where a tremendous amount of Catholic sacred music is still sung. However, he also sang at the great Catholic churches of England, which maintain a similar standard of choral music, second to none in the world. These experiences led to Mahon’s conversion to the Catholic faith. Having been baptized into the Anglican Church as an infant, he remained Anglican for most of his time in England but was received into the Catholic Church in 2017 in London through the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.
Andrew Mahon moved to the USA in 2021 and began working in Minnesota in 2022. He served as director of music and liturgy for Mary, Mother of the Church Area Catholic Community (ACC) in the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minnesota, where he directed the choir at St. Ann's Catholic Church in Wadena and oversaw the liturgical direction for the eight parishes that make up the ACC, which is the largest of its kind. He has also acted as a consultant for various Catholic communities, focusing on sacred music in the liturgy. Now in the Charlotte diocese, he and his wife, Marie-Claire, and their young children have settled in Mount Holly.
Andrew Mahon has appeared as a soloist across the UK, Canada and Europe, performing both concert and operatic repertoire. Specializing in the music of J.S. Bach, recent performances include Mass in B minor BWV 232 with the Tilford Bach Festival and Tenebrae & The Academy of Ancient Music; Matthäus-Passion BWV 244 with Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral; Johannes-Passion BWV 245 with the London Handel Orchestra ( June 2017), and the Orchestra of St. John's (Maarch 2016); Weihnachts-Oratorium BWV 248 with Gloucester Choral Society (December 2017), London Handel Orchestra, and Augsburger Domsingknaben.
In Canada, Andrew Mahon has performed with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (George Frideric Handel's Messiah; Mass in B minor BWV 232, May 2016), Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra & Chamber Choir (G.F. Handel's Israel in Egypt and Jan Dismas Zelenka's Missa Votiva), Les Voix Baroques (Matthäus-Passion BWV 244), Grand River Chorus (Messiah), Oakville Masterworks (Weihnachts-Oratorium BWV 248), Tallis Choir (Haydn's Mass in Time of War), Elora Festival (G.F. Handel's Te Deum, J.S. Bach's Lutheran Masses) and on numerous occasions with the Toronto Consort and Toronto Masque Theatre.
Other notable performances include G.F. Handel's Messiah for Wells Cathedral Oratorio Society; Felix Mendelssohn 's Elijah with Yorkshire Philharmonic Choir (April 2017); Haydn's The Seasons with Plymouth Philharmonic Choir (November 2014); Haydn's Nelson Mass with Wells Cathedral Choir; the role of Samuel in G.F. Handel's Saul with the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart and Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart; for the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival the role of Il Mandarino in Puccini's Turandot with NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg and a live television broadcast of L.v. Beethoven's Chorfantasie with the SHMF Choir and Orchestra. A frequent song recitalist, he has performed on the stages of Wigmore Hall, and the Forge in London, England. He has also been a member of Theatre of Early Music (Director: Daniel Taylor) and Tenebrae (Director: Nigel Short).
Andrew Mahon's 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 seasons have been severely curtailed by the Coronavirus Pandemic. Though he did appear with the Edmonton Symphony in George Frideric Handel's Messiah (December 2019), his performances of J. Haydn's Die Schöpfung for the Sequoia Symphony in California (April 2020), J.S. Bach Cantatas in Ottawa (November-December 2019) and Leipzig (Bachfest Leipzig (June 2020) with the Ottawa Bach Choir; J.S. Bach's Johannes-Passion BWV 245 with Tafelmusik (March 2020) and Messiah with the National Arts Centre Orchestra were postponed until future seasons. In 2025, on named new music director of St. Joseph College Seminary in in Western North Carolina. |
