An honours graduate and choral scholar from New College, Oxford, Toby Spence studied at the Opera School of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. While still a student, he made his Wigmore Hall recital début in the Schubertiade series and appeared at the Cheltenham and Brighton Festivals.

On the concert platform, he has sung with the Cleveland Orchestra under Dohnányi, the Bournemouth Symphony under Hickox, the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra under Eliot Gardiner, the San Francisco Symphony under Tilson Thomas, the Rotterdam Philharmonic under Gergiev, Les Musiciens du Louvre under Minkowski, the London Symphony Orchestra under Rattle and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century under Frans Brüggen. He has appeared in concert at the Salzburg and Edinburgh Festivals with Norrington and Mackerras.

He has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, BMG, Philips, Collins, Hyperion and EMI.

Since his opera début as Idamantes in Idomeneo for Welsh National Opera, he has been in heavy demand throughout the operatic world, (Brussels, Salzburg Festival, Netherlands Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Châtelet, the Ruhr Triennale, San Francisco, the Teatro Real in Madrid, Aix-en-Provence, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, Edinburgh Festival). He has established strong links with both English National Opera and the Paris Opéra, and is now reckoned to be one of the world’s most accomplished operatic tenors.