JIMMY HOLLIDAY
Jimmy Holliday (bass) is currently studying as the Martin Harris scholar at the Royal College of Music, London. He began singing as a chorister at Lichfield Cathedral before furthering his choral education under Mike Brewer and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, and David Hill at Winchester Cathedral. In 1997, he joined the choir of All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street, before rejoining Winchester Cathedral Choir as a Lay Clerk. Jimmy returned to London in September 2006 to take up his studies at the RCM and now regularly works with EXAUDI, Tenebrae, The Sixteen, The Gabrieli Consort, Ensemble Plus Ultra, I Fagiolini and The BBC Singers.
As a soloist, Jimmy is increasingly in demand. Oratorio performances during the last year included J.S. Bach St John Passion, St Matthew Passion and B Minor Mass, Handel Messiah with The Hanover Band and Samson, Haydn Creation, Mendlessohn Elijah, Brahms and Faure Requiem, Beethoven Choral Symphony and Rossini Stabat Mater. Future concerts this year include Bach St Matthew Passion in Winchester Cathedral, Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle, Monteverdi Vespers in Portsmouth and Winchester Cathedrals and Walford-Davis’ The Pied Piper with Tenebrae at The Vale of Glamorgan Festival. Jimmy won the RCM’s Lieder competition in 2007 and has recently sung Schubert’s Schwanengesang at Warwick University and Schumann’s Dichterliebe in Winchester Cathedral. He was also a prize winner at the 2007 Hampshire Singer of the Year. At the RCM he has participated in master-classes with Sarah Walker, Roger Vignoles, Graham Johnson, Peter Harvey, Philip Langridge and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.
Jimmy’s first operatic role was Father Truelove in Stravinsky The Rake’s Progress at Dartington with Alexander Oliver in 2005. In 2007 he sang the lead role, King Saul, in a new opera David and Goliath by Sam Hogarth with The New Chamber Opera, in New College, Oxford. Since then he sang in and recorded Handel’s Semele for the Early Opera Company, and sang Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo Caronte for the Suffolk Villages Festival. At the RCM Jimmy has performed scenes from Verdi’s Rigoletto Rigoletto and Lordzing’s Wildschutz Baculus, and sang the role of Dr Bartolo in the RCM’s production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. Future roles this year include Badger/Parson in the RCM’s summer production of Janacek’s Cunning little Vixen, Don Alfonso Cosi fan tutti, Colline La boheme and Noah in Britten’s Noah’s Flood.
Jimmy will return to the RCM this September having been awarded the top scholarship for the Benjamin Britten International Opera School, and is taught by Graeme Broadbent (Royal College of Music and formerly Royal Opera House, Covent Garden).
