A BBC New Generation Artist and Winner of both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2009 London 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. A former Samling Foundation Scholar, was awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Susan Chilcott Award, and gained 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, HK Gruber, Philippe Herreweghe, Juanjo Mena, 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, the Munich Radio Orchestra, 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, Fauré Mélodies,Berg Lieder, HaydnArianna a Naxos, MahlerLieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Rückert Lieder, Montsalvage Sinfonia de Requiem and SchumannMary Stuart Songs (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 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, Ella / In the Locked Room for Scottish Opera and Music Theatre Wales, Bach B Minor Mass and Handel Italian Cantatas with Musica Saeculorum, the St Matthew Passion in Sir Jonathan Miller’s production at the Royal National Theatre, Bob Chilcott’s The Angry Planet at the BBC Proms, Acis and Galatea with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Raymond Leppard, Messiah with the Israel Camerata, the London Handel Festival and the Ulster Orchestra, Mahler Rückert Lieder, Montsalvage Sinfonia de Requiem and Schubert Salve Regina with the BBC Philharmonic, The Fairy Queen with the New London Consort, The Indian Queen with Le Concert Spirituel, Schubert Orchestral Songs with the Ulster Orchestra, Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 3 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Bel desio mi tormenti with Les bijouxs indiscrets, Christmas Concerts with L’Orchestre de Picardie, the Four Seasons by Candlelight on tour for Raymond Gubbay Ltd, Ophée at the London Handel Festival, Seven Stages of Life for The King’s Consort, Songs of the Exotic at the Cheltenham Festival 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.