ALTHOUGH he was born in Western Australia, has studied overseas in the UK and now finds himself travelling extensively around Australia performing based out of Sydney and Canberra, Louis Hurley’s emerging opera singing career had a humble beginning right here in Hamilton.

With his parent’s family having strong connections to the area (and still do), he moved to Warrnambool when he was very young and would regularly visit his grandmother’s house opposite Monivae College and remembered being drawn to her piano; Louis said, “she sort of gave me my first lesson”.

“She had a house on Ballarat Road for decades, and I spent all school holidays at that house,” he said.

“The back covered verandah had the piano in the back corner. I liked making the noise and I remember learning what middle C was and very, very basic lessons.

“I always remember sitting at the back there with that piano.”

A move to Horsham when he was five years-old also prompted his first formal lessons, and to his delight he was gifted the very same piano a year or two later.

The generosity was honoured - “I think we had to get the piano tuner from Warrnambool” - and Louis set about discovering that his love for music was more than just a passing phase.

“It was really my exposure at that young age to music that then prompted me when I was living in Horsham to sort of say, ‘Hey, I want to learn music and I want to sing and I want to do all of this stuff’,” Louis said.

“I would say that if I hadn’t had that exposure, I probably wouldn’t have been drawn to music. I probably wouldn’t have asked that question because my family is not at all musical - my parents don’t have a musical bone in their bodies.

“I remember my mum was quite shocked when I came home from school one day and said I wanted to learn music and she thought, ‘Oh, what do I do? What do I get this kid?’

“Luckily, there was an amazing music academy in Horsham that I went to … I guess that was in the Yellow Pages and mum found it.”

Louis said he was extremely grateful for the mentoring of Wendy Weight - “(she) is just the most amazing woman” - the founder of the (closed in 2019) Horsham Music Academy and believed “if I wasn’t in Horsham, if I was in another regional centre, they may not have had this Academy”.

Later, another move to Western Australia followed where Louis added playing flute to his repertoire, but at some point singing along with choirs in school finally began to stir a deeper affinity for him.

“I guess the love of music blossomed together - I played the piano and sang,” Louis said.

“I was on flute scholarship at school … (I) sort of did all three.

“It wasn’t until the end of high school that I realised, ‘oh, no, I think singing is the one that feels less like work.’ - it came most naturally to me.”

Louis said although he made the decision to narrow his focus, he was extremely grateful for his wider musical experience as it has enriched his singing.

“I do look at colleagues of mine that don’t have that background in playing an instrument or playing piano and I think they do struggle a lot more learning music,” he said.

“I’m so glad that I can sit down at the keyboard and learn often quite difficult music and those skills have always come in handy later on in life as a professional.”

Asked by The Spectator whether that background had other influences on his work, Louis felt it also gave him a wider scope for performances.

“I would classify my career so far as a portfolio career,” he said.

“There are a lot of people that only want to do operas, or only want to do choral music, or only want to do concert music or recitals - I am interested in them all and I’ve really made a point of my relatively young career to have a lot of diverse projects in development at all time.

“So I do sing with orchestras and I do sing in operas. I sing a lot in consorts in sort of small ensembles of six voices or so where it’s often unaccompanied.

“I think with that … diverse musical background, it has influenced my musical interest (and) it influences the musician I am today.”

Following secondary school, Louis attended the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and then travelled to London where he studied a Masters of Music as a Hazell Scholar, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Although he had been offered to stay for a second masters, Louis returned to Australia with the view his youth and a range of opportunities here could be significantly leveraged.

“We’re constantly told, the voice doesn’t physically mature - especially for the male voice - until 30 to early 30s,” he said.

“I realised all of … my fellow students in the same year were a lot older than me - and I thought, I’ve got a bit of time here and there are some wonderful programs back in Australia that I never took advantage of, because I was 21 when I left.

“I wanted to do certain things, I wanted to sing for Pinchgut opera, I wanted to do Melba Opera Trust, which is a great program that supports five or six singers from around Australia every year and I managed to manifest those things. I think that that was one of the best decisions I could have made because I love being in Australia.”

Despite the considerably diminished opportunities for regular employment singing here compared to countries in Europe - “there’s about 60 full-time opera houses in Germany” – and “only 25 people in (Australia) that are on a full-time salary”, he was satisfied he’d made a good decision.

“I have diverse projects that I’m super passionate about and I love making, especially Australian music - music by Australian composers, and that’s just something that I wouldn’t be doing if I had stuck around in the UK,” Louis said.

Asked whether he would go back overseas at some point, he said rather than involve himself in what to him sometimes felt like an “opera machine” in Europe, he had other dreams.

“It can feel just like that – (a machine), it’s just churning out music in a very methodical way,” Louis said.

“It is incredible, but I’ve found that’s not where my passion is.”

So now, at 28 and after a few years of public performance opportunity interruptions with COVID, the promising signs of a better-defined career path - albeit unusual - seem to be building as he reflects on the past couple of years and the projects ahead.

“It’s been really good for me,” Louis said.

“At the end of last year, I sort of made my debut with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and these first big steps are a really positive thing.”

With stage appearances in ‘Fidelio’ (Beethoven’s only opera), Haydn’s ‘Nelson Mass’ and Handel’s enduring ‘Messiah’ as part of that experience, he has continued to work with Pinchgut Opera when time permits, with a growing list of roles a validation of his receiving of the inaugural The Humanity Foundation Taryn Fiebig Scholarship.

In addition, jumping at short notice into the role of Flute in Neil Armfield’s production of Benjamin Britten’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in 2021 was a fond memory for him and so was a local performance at the Port Fairy Spring Festival last year.

“I always loved doing recitals at university level,” Louis said.

“I got to come home and did a recital of German songs - it was amazing to be back … and have family come and see me.”

He was noticed there critically too, with his technique reviewed on ‘Classic Melbourne’ as “effortless” in addition to “excellent phrasing and warm and lyrical tone”, but it was the audience reaction that he most noted.

Louis said the favourable response demonstrated to him an appetite in the area for more of the genre.

“There is a hunger in these regions for classical music,” he said.

“A friend of mine who’s actually from Mildura … we want to apply for a grant to get funding to go to Warrnambool, go to Hamilton, go to Horsham, go to Mildura and bring a recital. So that’s one thing that’s really at the top of my list of priorities to make happen in the next year or so.”

He said he actually feels blessed to have a family unfamiliar with the performance arts “because I’ve seen so many friends of mine who have musical families who feel some sort of pressure to achieve” and added they’ve been very supportive and “fully trusted my musical mentors that have surrounded me”.

Louis also said his “team” of artistic management, coaches and other singers have been and continue to be a great asset and he is often guided by their industry understanding and experience to help with both long-term strategies such as being a sole trader and more immediate needs like the next job.

“I have many colleagues, who are also contractors that I make most of my music with, and we just get booked for all the same stuff,” he said.

“There’s a lot of word of mouth and if you’re a nice person, a nice colleague, and easy to work with and good at your job, you will get work in this country.”