CHARLES DANIELS

The tenor Charles Daniels’ repertoire extends 1150 years from the ninth century to the present day. Born in Salisbury, he received his musical training at King’s College, Cambridge, and the Royal College of Music in London where he studied under Edward Brooks.

He has made over sixty recordings as a soloist including Handel’s Messiah with the Gabrieli Consort for Deutsche Grammophon, Dowland songs for EMI, Handel’s Alexander Balus with The King’s Consort for Hyperion, The Beggar’s Opera for Hyperion, Schütz’ Christmas Story for Deutsche Grammophon, Haydn’s St Cecilia Mass with the Gulbenkian Choir and Orchestra, Bach’s Easter Oratorio with the Taverner Consort for EMI, Airs de Cour with Catherine King and Jacob Heringman, Handel Occasional songs with Emma Kirkby for SOMM records and more than twenty discs of Purcell’s music, mostly with The King’s Consort.

Operatic roles have included Le Dieu de Sommeil in Lully’s Atys for the Opéra de Paris and a leading role in Purcell’s Fairy Queen in the Aix-en-Provence Festival.

Concert engagements have included regular appearances at the BBC Promenade Concerts  including Monteverdi’s Vespers with The King’s Consort in 2004, Handel’s Joshua (London Handel Festival, broadcast by BBC Radio 3), Dream of Gerontius in Warsaw, Mendelssohn’s Elijah (Fribourg), Monteverdi’s Orfeo with the Toronto Consort, the Evangelist in Bach’s St John Passion (London, with the Academy of Ancient Music) and St Matthew Passion (Spain, The Sixteen), Luigi Nono’s Canti di Vita e Amore (Edinburgh Festival), Michael Zev Gordon Song and Stravinsky Cantata (Spitalfields Festival) Handel’s L’Allegro with The King’s Consort (Milan and Ferrara), Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (St.Gallen), Cavalieri’s Anima e Corpo (Schwäbische Gmünd), 16th century Tenor songs with Fretwork in Antwerp in the Flanders Festival, Finzi’s Dies Natalis (Brinkburn Festival), Handel’s Messiah (Brussels, Utrecht, Oslo, Madrid, London (Westminster Abbey, Barbican), Bogota, Lugano for Radio Svizzera Italiana), Bach’s Magnificat with the English Concert in Spain, Handel’s Esther in Hebrew in New York, Purcell’s King Arthur and Handel’s Messiah in Toronto with Tafelmusik and at the Musikverein, Vienna (Harnoncourt), Handel’s Belshazzar at the Théâtre de Champs Elysées, Paris, Bach’s St John Passion and B Minor Mass in Germany and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen at the BBC Proms with The Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh and the Première of Wojciech Kilar’s Missa Pro Pace with the Warsaw Philharmonic.  He has recently performed Bach Profane Cantatas on tour with Instant Pluriel in France, Messiah with the RSNO and Mass in B Minor with Ton Koopman for the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Munich.

Recent engagements include St Matthew Passion for Netherlands Philharmonic at the Concertgebouw with Sir Colin Davis, Dido & Aeneas and Guilty Night for Il Complesso Barocco and On Wenlock Edge at Corbridge Chamber Music Festival.

Engagements for the 2008/2009 season include Monteverdi Vespers in Leiden and for the Gabrieli Consort in Venice, Messiah with the Collegium Musicum Bergen, Christmas Oratorio on tour with the Netherlands Bach Society, Theodora at the London Handel Festival, Vespers of 1610 with the Toronto Consort, St Matthew Passion with Tafelmusik in Toronto and Elgar Light of Life with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir.         

[Photograph by: Hanya Chlala.]