Ruby Hughes,Soprano
Julius
Drake, Piano
Wednesday 3 November 2010
“Ruby Hughes brings Atalanta to palpitating life. She invests her coloratura arias with ravishing beauty.” Atalanta / London Handel Festival / The Independent
“…the gifted young soprano Ruby Hughes…she's made for the opera stage because she sings with such ringing belief.” Geoff Brown / The Times
Programme
Selection of English
canzonetta's Franz Joseph Haydn
(1732-1809)
Liederkreis Op 39 Robert Schumann
(1810-1856)
interval
Poulenc Fiancailles
pour rire Francis Poulenc(1899 - 1963)
Folk Settings Benjamin
Britten (1813 - 1976)
The Ash Grove
Down by the Sally Gardens
Ca the Yowes
Oliver Cromwell
Waly Waly
Click to enlargen photos
Winner of both First Prize and
the Audience Prize at the 2009 London Handel Festival
Singing Competition, Ruby Hughes is the daughter of the
celebrated Welsh ceramicist Elizabeth Fritsch. Born in
London, she attended the Arts Educational School, Tring,
furthering her studies in voice and ‘cello at Chetham’s
School of Music and the Guildhall School of Music, before
gaining a Masters degree with Distinction in Concert and
Song at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Munich,
working with Edith Wiens. In 2005, she was the Vocal Prize
Winner at the Mozarteum Akademie, Salzburg, and in 2006,
gained a Royal Philharmonic Society Susan Chilcott Award.
Her other awards include the Vocal Prize in the 2002 Gerald
Moore Competition, and a full scholarship to study with
Lillian Watson at the Royal College of Music, London.
She has sung the title role in Atalanta
and Cleofide / Poro with Laurence Cummings
at the London Handel Festival, Euridice /
L’Orfeo at the Aix-en-Provence Festival with René Jacobs,
She King Arthur with Wolfgang Katschner and Der Lautten
Compagney, Berlin, Le Statue / Pygmalion with Christian
Curnyn and the Early Opera Company and Rose
Maurrant / Street Scene for The Opera Group, a
production which gained the 2008 Evening Standard Award. In
Munich’s Haus der Kunst she performed the title role in
Juditha Triumphans and Madeline
Usher in Philip Glass’s The Fall of the House of
Usher in a co production with the Bayerischer
Staatsschauspiel, and in December sung Don
Ramiro / La finta giardiniera at the Royal College
of Music.
This year she recorded Silvia/ L’Isola
disabitata by Guessepi Bonno for Harmonia Mundi with Pablo
Heras-Casado at the Festival Internacional de Música
Antigua, Madrid. It was the first recording and performance
in modern times. She performed Lucinda /
Don Chischiotte in Sierra Morena with Musikwerkstatt Vienna
and Narcissa / Philemon und Baucis for
Potsdam Early Music Festival conducted by Olof Boman and
Akademie der Alte Musik Berlin, returning to Potsdam for
the Winter Oper in November singing
Sandrina in Haydn’s L’Infedelta delusa
with Andreas Spering conducting.
Concert engagements have included Handel Chandos Anthems
with Marc Minkowski and Les Musicians du Louvre throughout
France and Poland, St John Passion, and Messiah
performances with the Orchestra of St John’s, the
Philharmonia Orchestra and Adrian Partington, Música
Saecolorum, recorded for ORF. She has sung with Stephen
Cleobury Handel’s Ode for Queen Anne’s Birthday with the
Academy of Ancient Music, and in the Creation for a
Christmas Gala with the Philharmonia Orchestra/ Kings
College Choir. She performed Mahler Symphony No. 4 at the
Nuremberg International Chamber Music Festival, Mozart Mass
in C Minor at the St Endellion Festival and with Münchner
Symphonica and Pierrot Lunaire at the Pinakothek de Modern,
Munich, as well as most recently a European concert tour
with Cappella Amsterdam, Akademie der Alte Musik and Daniel
Reuss in Handel’s Saul.
Her broadcasts include a Handel 250th Anniversary Concert
for RTÉ Lyric FM with Andreas Spering and The RTE National
Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (broadcast to the EU as part
of the 2009 Handel celebrations) and In Tune for BBC Radio
3. She has sung live broadcasts for Bayerisches Rundfunk
and Austrian Radio and Television (ORF).
Current engagements include Michal /Saul
at the 2011 Buxton Festival with Harry Christophers,
Fortuna L’Incoronazione di Poppea
and Roggiero / Tancredi at the
Theater an der Wien with Christopher Moulds and René Jacobs
respectively, Manto / Niobe
(Cover) for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and
Rose Maurrant / Street Scene at
Opéra de Toulon. She will be touring with Frieder Bernius
in J. S. Bach B Minor Mass, and performing Bach
Cantatas with Le Concert Lorraine and with Das
Neue Orchester and Christoph Spering at the Concertgebouw,
and the Leipzig Bach Festival, the Magnificat at
Three Choirs Festival, Gloucester 2010, and St Matthew
Passion at the London Handel Festival 2010 (also on
tour with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in
2012), Handel Arias with the London Handel
Orchestra at the Wigmore Hall, Saul on tour with Daniel
Reuss and Cappella Amsterdam, Handel’s Tragic
Heroines with the Classical Opera Company, Haydn
English Canzonettas with Salzburg Hoff Musik at
the Eisenstadt Haydn Festival, the Nelson Mass
with the London Mozart Players and for the St Endellion
Festivals Golden Jubilee Appeal Concert at Cadogan Hall,
Mahler Symphony No. 4 at the Nuremberg
International Chamber Music Festival and Four Seasons
by Candlelight for Raymond Gubbay Ltd at the Royal
Albert Hall, London.
Official Web Site
photograph by Sim
Canetty-Clarke
Julius Drake
The pianist Julius Drake lives in London and specialises in the field of chamber music, working with many of the world’s leading vocal and instrumental artists, both in recital and on disc.
He appears at all the major music centres: in recent seasons concerts have regularly taken him to the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Munich, Salzburg, Schubertiade, and Tanglewood Festivals; to Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Centre, New York; the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; the Chatalet and Musée de Louvre, Paris; the Musikverein and the Konzerthaus, Vienna; and the Wigmore Hall and BBC Proms London.
Julius Drake’s passionate interest in song has led to invitations to devise song series for the Wigmore Hall, London, the BBC and the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. A series of song recitals - Julius Drake and Friends - in the historic Middle Temple Hall in London, has featured recitals with many outstanding artists including Sir Thomas Allen, Olaf Bär, Ian Bostridge, Phillip Langridge, Angelika Kirchschlager, Sergei Leiferkus, Dame Felicity Lott, Katarina Karneus, Angelika Kirchschlager, Christopher Maltman, Mark Padmore, Christoph Pregardien, Amanda Roocroft, Jose Van Dam and Sir Willard White.
Julius Drake is also frequently invited to perform at international chamber music festivals such as Kuhmo in Finland, Delft in The Netherlands, Oxford in England and West Cork in Ireland, while his instrumental duo with Nicholas Daniel has been described in The Independent newspaper as “one of the most satisfying in British chamber music: vital, thoughtful and confirmed in musical integrity of the highest order.”
Julius Drake is a Professor at The Royal Academy of Music in London and visiting Professor at The Royal Northern College of Music. In addition he regularly gives masterclasses, most recently in Amsterdam, Brussels, Oxford, Paris, Vienna and at the Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien. In 2009 he has been invited on to the jury of The Leeds International Piano Competition and appointed artistic director of Leeds Lieder in 2009 and the Machynlleth Festival in Wales 2009 - 2011.
Julius Drake’s many recordings include discs with Alice Coote (EMI), Hugues Cuenod (Chandos), Sophie Daneman (EMI), Joyce Didonato (Eloquentia and Wigmore Live), Nicholas Daniel (Virgin Classics), Andrew Kennedy (Altara), Katarina Karneus (Hyperion), Christopher Maltman (Wigmore Live), Christian Poltera (Bis) and Christianne Stotijn (Onyx.)
He has made a series of award winning series of recordings with Ian Bostridge for EMI, including Schumann, Schubert, Henze, Britten, The English Songbook and La Bonne Chanson.
His recent series of recordings with Gerald Finley for Hyperion - Ives, Barber and Schumann - have been much acclaimed and the Songs of Samuel Barber is winner of the 2008 Gramophone Award.
Highlights in the coming season include Schubert at Carnegie Hall, New York with Ian Bostridge; ‘Wigmore Live’ recording releases with Gerald Finley and the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson; Recitals in New York and London with Alice Coote; Grieg Songs for Hyperion with Katarina Karneus and Tchaikovsky songs for Onyx with Christianne Stotijn; recitals in Ulm and London with Diana Damrau and Schumann duets and quartets with Röschmann, Kirchschlager, Bostridge and Quasthoff at the Schubertiade in Austria and in Hamburg, London and Vienna.
Official Web Site