JAMES HUW JEFFRIES
Born in Canterbury, JAMES HUW JEFFRIES counter-tenor, began his musical education as a chorister in the choir of St John's College, Cambridge. Subsequently, he read Music at Magdalen College, Oxford, furthering his vocal studies at the Royal College of Music, London, where he was awarded the Henry Blower Prize, and at the Britten-Pears School. A former Recommended Artist of the National Federation of Music Societies, he was selected by the Koninklijke Christelijke Zangersbond for the 1996 Erna Spoorenberg Solistenpresentatie in The Netherlands and made his London solo début in Israel in Egypt at St John's, Smith Square.
James Huw Jeffries’ operatic engagements have included Oberon, A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Theater der Landeshauptstadt, Magdeburg, Orfeo, Orfeo ed Euridice at the Riverside Studios, Poro for Antahkarana, Rinaldo at the Bloomsbury Theatre, Andronico, Tamerlano and Pastore, L’Orfeo at the Aldeburgh Festival, Nerone, L’Incoronazione di Poppea for the Cavalli Baroque Ensemble, The Spirit, Dido and Aeneas for the English Bach Festival, The Countertenor in Heiner Goebbels' SCHLIEMANN Scaffolding for Diplous Eros at The Theseum, Athens and Cupid in Jacques van Rhijn's Venus for Torn Halves Music Theatre at the Hackney Empire. He has also covered Bishop Baldwin, Gawain for the Royal Opera and Buggen, The Fairy Queen for English National Opera. This season he has made débuts at the Netherlands Opera as Caterpillar/Caspar in the world première of Alexander Knaifel’s Alice in Wonderland, directed by Pierre Audi and conducted by Martyn Brabbins, and at the Royal Danish Opera as Nireno in Giulio Cesare directed by Francisco Negrin and conducted by Lars Ulrik Mortensen. He also sang the role of Tolomeo in the same opera with Concerto Copenhagen at the Bergen International Festival 2002.
James Huw Jeffries’ concert engagements have taken him throughout the UK and also to Europe and North America. Singing under conductors such as Martyn Brabbins, Fabian Dobler, Pieter Jan Leusink, Brian Kay, Andrew Parrott, Penelope Rapson, Wolfgang Seeliger and Eberhard Volk, his concert appearances have included performances with the Darmstadt Hofkapelle, Fiori Musicali, the Magdeburg Philharmonic, the Mainz Chamber Orchestra, the National Chamber Orchestra of Wales, the New Hamilton Orchestra, Canada, the Netherlands Bach Collegium, the Northern Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Golden Age, the Orchestra of St Cecilia, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Opera Orchestra and the Taverner Players. He was Mephistopheles in the London première of Schnittke’s Faust and has sung at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, at the Brighton, Birmingham Early Music, Edinburgh, Leith Hill and St Ceciliatide Festivals, the Barbican Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, St James's, Piccadilly, St John's, Smith Square, the Fairfield Halls, Croydon, the Snape Maltings, the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea, and in most of the UK Cathedrals.
James Huw Jeffries' future engagements include further performances as Oberon in Sommernachtstraum in Magdeburg, Nireno in Giulio Cesare for the Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen (with Andreas Scholl as Cesare), the Chichester Psalms in Gloucester Cathedral, Messiah with the Manchester Camerata, Alice in Wonderland at the Royal Netherlands Opera and a wide range of performances with choral societies throughout the UK.
