New Zealand–born Samoa bass-baritone Samson Setu recently studied at the Royal College of Music, London, completing a post-graduate diploma. He is now in his first year in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. He is also a former student in the Kiri Te Kanawa Programme for Young Singers, Freemason’s New Zealand Opera Artist, and the Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist of 2018 for New Zealand Opera.

His most recent accomplishments include competing as a finalist in the 2019 IFAC HANDA Australian Competition, where he received awards of a three-week program at the State Opera House in Saarbrücken, a four-week intensive course at any Goethe Institut Centre in Germany, and an opportunity to participate in the International Vocal Arts Institute Summer Program in New York in 2020.

During the New Zealand Opera’s 2018 season, he appeared as the Usher in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury, Simeon in Debussy’s L’Enfant Prodigue, and the Speaker and Sarastro in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.