Julien Van Mellaerts is a baritone from New Zealand, born in 1988. He studied at the University of Otago and at the International Opera School of the Royal College of Music in London, graduating in 2017. He won the German Lied Award at the Concours musical international de Montréal in 2018 and first prize at the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition in 2017. Among the cities in which he has given Lieder recitals are Beijing, Barcelona, Berlin (Pierre Boulez Hall) and London (Wigmore Hall/BBC Lunchtime Series). His operatic roles include Schaunard in Puccini’s La Bohème, the title role in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Harlekin in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. He has appeared as a soloist with orchestra in Fauré’s Requiem, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Britten’s War Requiem and Copland’s suite Old American Songs.