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The English bass, Ben Davies, studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Mark Wildman and Antony Saunders. Whilst at the Academy he won the Oratorio Prize and the Henry Cummings Prize.
His roles include Sailor in Dido & Aeneas for William Christie and Deborah Warner at the Vienna Festival, Netherlands Opera and the Opera Comique, Paris; Ubalde in Armide by Gluck for the Buxton Festival; Aeneas in Dido & Aeneas under Sir John Eliot Gardiner at the Opera de Lyon; Judge in Das Wunder der Heliane by Korngold under Vladimir Jurowski; Guglielmo in Così fan Tutte; Bartolo and Antonio in Le nozze di Figaro; Polyphemus in Acis & Galatea; Bass in The Fairy Queen; Amis in Le Pauvre Matelot by Milhaud; Marcello in La Boheme in scenes for The Lesley Garrett Show, BBC and covers of Achilla in Giulio Cesare, Bass in J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion (BWV 244), Betto di Signa in Gianni Schicchi, Sprecher in Die Zauberflöte and Krušina in The Bartered Bride for Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Other operatic productions in which he has appeared include Le Rossignol by Igor Stravinsky, and covered the role of Antonio in Le nozze di Figaro for John Copley and Sir Colin Davis.
His extensive repertoire includes works such as J.S. Bach's St John Passion (BWV 245), the Requiems of Johannes Brahms, W.A. Mozart and Gabriel Fauré, Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle. Edward Elgar's Dream of Gerontius and Kurt Weill's Der Jasager. Recent concert performances include The Fairy Queen, Messiah, J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio (BWV 248), Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem and both J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion (BWV 244) and St John Passions (BWV 245) for Harry Christophers and The Sixteen; W.A. Mozart's C Minor Mass and Purcell's Ode on St Cecilia's Day for Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort, J.S. Bach's St John Passion (BWV 245) with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi for Robert King and W.A. Mozart's Solemn Vespers, C Minor Mass and Requiem with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists. Other notable concert performances include W.A. Mozart's concert aria Cosi dunque tradisci with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the British premiere of Hermann Suter's Le Laudi, John Rutter's Mass of the Children in the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, the Verdi’s Requiem in Leeds Town Hall and J.S. Bach's solo cantata Ich habe genug (BWV 82) in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford.
Ben Davies is a lay clerk at the Brompton Oratory and also sings with The Sixteen and the Monteverdi Choir. has performed with choral societies throughout the country in a variety of venues such as St John's, Smith Square, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wakefield and Ripon Cathedrals and the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford.
Plans for the future include the St Matthew Passion (BWV 244) for The King’s Consort and Monteverdi's Vespers for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Future engagements include also a tour of Spain and a performance of Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah in Norwich. |
