Breaking NEWS 25-year-old Australian baritone Samuel Johnson, has won the prestigious German Opera Award in Sydney today and will be off to Cologne Opera! Samuel is also the 2013 recipient of the RJ Hamer Opera Scholarship presented by the Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust. Samuel is currently completing his Masters in Operatic Performance, at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. He recently performed the role of Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, a Queensland Conservatorium production for The Brisbane Festival, conducted by Alex Ingram. Johnson was also a national finalist in the McDonald’s Operatic Aria and Italian Awards.He has appeared in oratorio on numerous occasions in Brisbane and throughout regional Queensland. In 2011, he performed as soloist with tenor Simon O’Neill in the Puccini Gala Concert, with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. While studying, Samuel has performed numerous operatic roles including Styx in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, Taddeo and Silvio in excerpts from Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Peter Quince in Benjamin Brittin’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Father in excerpts from Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, the title role in Handel’s Saul, Pandolfe in Massenet’s Cendrillon and the title role in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi.