JOHN ELWES
Tenor
Performer
The 2008 Grammy award nominated John Elwes is one of the foremost international tenors of his generation. He began his musical career at Westminster Cathedral in London where he became Head Chorister. His musical and vocal education was furthered by the eminent harpsichordist George Malcolm, the then Director of Music. He had considerable success as a boy soprano: from BBC broadcasts and recordings, to concerts with such conductors as Benjamin Britten, who dedicated his Corpus Christi Carol to him.
His repertoire is extensive, ranging from Monteverdi, Rameau, Bach and Handel to Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Fauré, Mahler and Britten. He has a busy concert and operatic life performing with conductors such as Gustav Leonhardt, Michel Corboz, Niklaus Harnoncourt, Roger Norrington, John Eliot Gardiner, Joshua Rifkin and Christopher Hogwood.
John Elwes’s stage performances include the title roles of Monteverdi’s three extant operas: L’Orfeo, L’Incorinazione di Poppea and Il Ritorno d’Ulisse. Others are the title roles in Rameau’s Pygmalion and Zoroastre, Elmiro in Vivaldi’s Dorilla in Tempe and Alessandro in Mozart’s Il Re Pastore. In November 2004, John sang the title role in Mozart’s Idomeneo in Tokyo.
His solo recitals encompass Elizabethan song with renaissance lute; music of the 17th century with baroque harp; Lieder and Chansons.
John Elwes has participated in more than 100 recordings. Notable among these is his much acclaimed (Gramophone) recording of John Dowland’s First Book of Ayres [Vérany], Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers [BMG] with Frieder Bernius, Purcell’s The Tempest [Archiv] with John Eliot Gardiner, Rameau’s operas Pygmalion and Zoroastre [Harmonia Mundi] with Gustav Leonhardt and Sigiswald Kuijken, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and B minor mass [Harmonia Mundi] with Gustav Leonhardt, Handel’s opera Tamerlano [CBS] with Jean-Claude Malgoire and Honneggar’s Le Roi David [Erato] with Michel Corboz. His latest releases have been Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde [Smithsonian], for which he was nominated for a Grammy award in 2008; Schubert’s Winterreise: with Ken Slowik, fortepiano [Smithsonian], and Moore’s Irish Melodies with Yoshio Watanabe, fortepiano [Kojima]. He also enjoys teaching and giving masterclasses. In 1991, the Conservatoire Supérieure de Lyon, France, invited John to establish a baroque vocal class there.