The South African-born countertenor is singing in a concert on Sunday March 8 in All Saints Church as part of the New Zealand International Early Music Festival.
Winner of the New Zealand Aria Competition and first runner-up in the Lexus Song Quest in 2012, the 27-year-old rising star came to New Zealand in 2003 with his parents at the age of 15.
While at school he joined the Auckland Youth Choir, still singing soprano.
''I didn't know anything about countertenor at that point but the conductor said I may be a countertenor and to go and have some lessons and see if I could take it somewhere,'' he said.
Countertenors are usually baritones and often sing baritone when their voices break before realising they are countertenors.
''Countertenor comes to me as naturally as baritone comes to a baritone. Baritone is more foreign to me because I've never sung baritone and not been trained in that way. I can sing that low but I sound like a boy whose voice has just broken when I sing baritone,'' he said.
His teachers train him as if they were training a female voice, he says.
''The biggest misconception is that the countertenor is a falsetto, but that's not a true sound because the vocal folds don't close completely so it doesn't have much agility, but with a countertenor the folds do the full cycle so it's a full voice and you can do more with it, there's more agility and a fuller sound.''
When he completes his BMus at Auckland University later this year he plans to go overseas for more study or join a young artists' programme somewhere.
He has already been on the emerging artists programme with New Zealand Opera in 2011 and 2012.
In October last year he used his scholarship from the Lexus award to come to Dunedin to study with Terence Dennis, and has been to the New Zealand Opera School for three years for intensive training and networking.
In the Dunedin concert he will be singing with British-born countertenor Christopher John Clifford, director of the NZIEMF.
They will sing the ravishing countertenor duet by John Blow (1649-1709) Ode on the death of Mr Henry Purcell, as well as solos and duets by both Purcell and Blow.
