Kerry Bursey is a Canadian tenor and plucked string instrumentalist from Montréal. An early music specialist and a versatile singer, he is acclaimed for his “clear voice, made of dreamy troubadouresque sweetness” (Ôlyrix) and “beneficent tenderness” (Le Temps). He is a sought-after lutenist and guitarist, notably invested in the practice of self-accompaniment, from the lute song repertoire to folk music of northwestern traditions. In 2023, he makes his European debut as a soloist at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Manchester International Festival and the Bregenzer Festspieler, followed by performances next year at the Southbank Centre, the Holland Festival and the Ruhrtriennale.

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He regularly works as a soloist with early music groups such as l’Harmonie des saisons, Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Ensemble Caprice, les Voix Humaines, Theatre of Early Music, les Idées Heureuses, la Nef, les Barocudas, Caelis, Clavecin en Concert as well as his own group Ménestrel, co-founded with soprano Janelle Lucyk. He has featured on a dozen albums with labels including ATMA Classique and Deutsche Grammophon. In 2021, he was appointed as the new tenor of Quartom, the leading classical vocal quartet in Québec.

 

Kerry is frequently hired as a session musician and creative collaborator because of his broad musical output, from pop to video game music. He composed and performed the soundtrack of an award-winning film, 444, a psychological thriller that premiered at the 2021 Fantasia Film Festival in Montréal. He also sang Gregorian chants as a monk in the latest instalment of the video game Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. 

 

Kerry holds a masters’s degree in classical guitar from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and has studied voice performance at McGill University. He was a winner at the 2011 Grand Prix de Guitare de Montréal.