Baritone Sam Hird joined the Jette Parker Artists Programme in the 2025/26 Season. He is a Samling Artist and trained at the Royal College of Music where he won the Tagore Gold Medal. Additional awards include the 2024 Clonter Opera Prize, Peter Hulsen Orchestral Song Competition with the Sinfonia Smith Square and Prix Thierry Mermod at the 2023 Verbier Festival, where he was part of the Atelier Lyrique. He made his Royal Opera debut as the title role in Pimpinone in the Linbury Theatre and his Main Stage debut as Baron Douphol (La traviata). Other highlights include Count Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Danilo (The Merry Widow), Ramiro (L’heure espagnole), Biagio (Don Giovanni Tenorio) and Ambassador (La bella dormente nel bosco) for the RCM, Peer (Peer Gynt) with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Brahms’ Ein Deutches Requiem with the Liverpool Philharmonic and his Wigmore Hall debut in a recital of songs by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Joseph Horovitz. 2025/26 Royal Opera roles included Mityukha (Boris Godunov), Marullo (Rigoletto) and Mark, Hewson and Krumpelblatt in the JPAP production of Tales of Love and Loss. 2026/27 roles include Moralès (Carmen), Guccio (Gianni Schicchi), Kuligin (Káťa Kabanová), Sciarrone (Tosca) and Prince Yamadori (Madama Butterfly).