A BBC New Generation Artist and Winner of both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2009 Handel Singing Competition, Ruby Hughes is the daughter of the celebrated Welsh ceramicist Elizabeth Fritsch. She studied voice and ‘cello at Chetham’s School of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, before gaining a First Class Distinction Concert Diploma in Concert and Song at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Munich, working with Edith Wiens. In 2005, she was a Prizewinner at the Mozarteum Sommer Akademie, Salzburg, and in 2006, gained a Royal Philharmonic Society Susan Chilcott Award. A former Samling Foundation Scholar, her other awards include a Vocal Prize in the 2002 Gerald Moore Competition, and a full scholarship to study with Lillian Watson at the Royal College of Music, London, graduating in July 2009.
Selected by OPERA NOW as amongst “Who’s Hot in Opera”, she made her debut at the Theater an der Wien in October 2009 as Roggiero / Tancredi conducted by René Jacobs, returning as Fortuna / L’Incoronazione di Poppea. She has sung the title role in Atalanta and Cleofide / Poro with Laurence Cummings at the London Handel Festival, Euridice / L’Orfeo at the Aix-en-Provence Festival with René Jacobs, She / King Arthur with Wolfgang Katschner and Der Lautten Compagney, Berlin, The Statute / Pygmalion with Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company and Rose Maurrant / Street Scene for The Opera Group. Further engagements have included Silvia /L’isola disabitata (Bonno) with Pablo Heras-Casado at the Festival Internacional de Música Antigua, Madrid, the title role in Erismena for New Chamber Opera, Lucinda / Don Chischiotte in Sierra Morena with Musikwerkstatt Wien, Handel’s Tragic Heroines with the Classical Opera Company, Sandrina /L’infedelta delusa for Potsdamer Winteroper conducted by Andreas Spering,Narcissa / Philemon und Baucis at the Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci with the Akademie für Alte Musik conducted by Olof Boman,Belinda / Dido and Aeneaswith Yvonne Kenny at West Green House and Rose Maurrant / Street Scene at the Opéra de Toulon.
In concert, she has sung under conductors including Arie van Beek, Frieder Bernius, Douglas Boyd, Laurence Cummings, Paul Goodwin, Marc Minkowski, Daniel Reuss, Christoph Spering, Takuo Yuasa and Johannes Wildner, and with ensembles such as the Academy of Ancient Music, the BBC Concert Orchestra, Cappella Amsterdam, Le Concert Lorrain, Huddersfield Choral Society, the London Handel Players, the London Mozart Players, the Manchester Camerata, Musica Saeculorum, Das Neue Orchestra, the Orchestre de Picardie, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. Festival appearances include Cheltenham, Eisenstadt Haydn, Fishguard, Göttingen, London Handel, Nuremberg International Chamber Music and St Endellion.
Her broadcasts and recordings include Bach Christmas Cantatas (SR2), a Handel 250th Anniversary Concert conducted by Andreas Spering for RTÉ Lyric fM (broadcast to the EU as part of the Handel celebrations), Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Haydn Arianna a Naxos and Mahler Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (BBC Radio 3), Handel Chandos Anthems (Polish Radio), Saul (Netherlands Radio), Handel on Tour (BR – Klassik), Messiah (ORF CD), Philemon und Baucis (Deutschlandradio Kultur), Orphée - French Cantatas from the Göttingen Festival (NDR) and In Tune (BBC Radio 3).
During 2011, she made debuts at the Buxton Festival as Michal / Saul at the Buxton Festival with Harry Christophers and at English National Opera as Minerva / The Return of Ulysses for English National Opera with Jonathan Cohen. Current engagements include Venus / Venus and Adonis for Les Arts Florissants, Iole / Hercules for Capella Cracoviensis, Argene / L’Olimpiade for Garsington Opera, Bach B Minor Mass with Musica Saeculorum, the St Matthew Passion in Sir Jonathan Miller’s production at the Royal National Theatre, Acis and Galatea with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Raymond Leppard, Apollo e Dafne at the Kapsovar International Chamber Music Festival, Messiah with the Israel Camerata, Mendelssohn Hör mein Bitten with Collegium Vocale conducted by Philippe Herreweghe, Montsalvage Sinfonia de Requiem with the BBC Philharmonic, The Fairy Queen and King Arthur on tour with the New London Consort, Schubert Orchestral Songs with the Ulster Orchestra, Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 3 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Seven Stages of Life for The King’s Consort, the Four Seasons by Candlelight on tour for Raymond Gubbay Ltd, Christmas Concerts with L’Orchestre de Picardie and recitals with Julius Drake at the Mananan and West Cork Chamber Music Festivals.
Please note that this biography is not to be used for programmes. Current information is available on request.