City offers change of tempo for the operatic Wizard of Oz

HE'S come a long way since his teenage years when he was singing in the school choir at Broxburn Academy.

Fast-forward four decades and David Hamilton has been described as one of Australia's finest tenors and even been honoured by its government.

But despite being internationally renowned, the 56-year-old is still relatively unknown back home.

This weekend, the artist who has played the Sydney Opera House "hundreds of times" will take to the slightly more modest stage of the St Andrew's and St George's West Church on George Street for his first major performance in Edinburgh.

The tenor moved to Sydney in 1980 before spending three years in Germany between 2007 and 2010. He returned to Scotland last April and now lives in the Grange, but still performs around the world.

Saturday night's performance will be David's first solo recital in Scotland.

He will mark his homecoming by singing Schubert's Winterreise, accompanied by Edinburgh pianist Neil Metcalfe.

David said: "It's lovely to be back home but it's quite hard to re-establish oneself after you've had a big career overseas. I have been well-known in Australia and New Zealand especially, but I wasn't entirely happy living in Berlin."

Despite having a distinguished international career at the highest level in the fields of opera, oratorio and concert repertoire, David has seldom performed in his home country. He has, however, sung in every city in Australia and New Zealand.

After graduating in singing and flute at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and Napier University, David built a strong reputation in Australia. In 2000, he was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal for services to Music by the Australian government.

Seven years later he moved to Germany where he sang the title roles of Wagner's Lohengrin and Mozart's Idomeneo for Saarbrucken Opera and in Lbeck.

David, who has also performed to critical acclaim in Japan and China, said: "I have loved music from when I was just a schoolkid. When I was in Australia, I got into one of the leading singing groups - The Song Company - in the 80s and that's really where I started my career. I was with the group for about seven or eight years and performed all over Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

"I have sung at the Sydney Opera House hundreds of times because I worked with Opera Australia in the 90s and that's their home theatre. I was singing there several times a week."

He added: "I sang Flower of Scotland in front of 80,000 people at the Sydney Olympic Stadium for a rugby game between Scotland and Australia and it was great fun."

David recently returned from a week in Panama City where he was singing the tenor solo in Beethoven's 9th Symphony.