SOPRANO

Winner of both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2009 London Handel Festival 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. 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, from where she graduated in July 2009.

Selected by OPERA NOW as amongst “Who’s Hot in Opera” in November / December 2008, 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. Concert engagements have included the St John Passion and Messiah with the Orchestra of St John’s, Handel Chandos Anthems with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre, Handel Ode for Queen Anne’s Birthday with Stephen Cleobury and the Academy of Ancient Music, Mahler Symphony No. 4 with the Oxford Philomusica, Mozart Mass in C Minor at the St Endellion Festival, Pierrot Lunaire at the Pinakothek de Modern, Munich, and the Opening Concert at Kings Place Hall with Ian Page and the Classical Opera Company Her broadcasts 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), Handel Chandos Anthems (Polish Radio), Saul (Netherlands Radio), Philemon und Baucis (Deutschlandradio Kultur) and In Tune (BBC Radio 3).

Recent engagements have included Silvia / L’isola disabitata (Bonno) with Pablo Heras-Casado at the Festival Internacional de Música Antigua, Madrid, Lucinda / Don Chischiotte in Sierra Morena with Musikwerkstatt Wien, Narcissa / Philemon und Baucis at the Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sansoucci with the Akademie für Alte Musik conducted by Olof Boman, Belinda / Dido and Aeneas with Yvonne Kenny at West Green House, Handel Dixit Dominus at the Göttingen Festival, Messiah with Musica Saeculorum (at the Brixner Initiative Musik und Kirche), the Philharmonia Orchestra and at the Fishguard International Festival, A Handel Celebration with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Exploring Handel with the Ten Tors Orchestra, Haydn English Canzonettas with Salzburg Hoff Musik at the Eisenstadt Haydn Festival, and Poulenc Fiançailles pour rire at the Salzburg Mozarteum.

Current engagements include the title role in Erismena for New Chamber Opera, Michal / Saul at the Buxton Festival with Harry Christophers, Sandrina / L’infedelta delusa for Potsdamer Winteroper conducted by Andreas Spering, Fortuna / L’Incoronazione di Poppea and Roggiero / Tancredi at the Theater an der Wien with Christopher Moulds and René Jacobs respectively, Minerva The Return of Ulysses for English National Opera, Manto / Niobe (Cover) for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Rose Maurrant / Street Scene at the Opéra de Toulon, Bach B Minor Mass tours with the Stuttgart Kammerchor and Frieder Bernius and Les Musiciens du Louvre with Marc Minkowski, Cantatas with Le Concert Lorrain and with Das Neue Orchester at the Concertgebouw and Christoph Spering, Magnificat at the Three Choirs Festival, Gloucester 2010, and St Matthew Passion at the London Handel Festival 2010 (also on tour with the OAE), a recording of Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Johannes Wildner,  Handel Arias with the London Handel Festival Orchestra at the Wigmore Hall, with the Münchner Rundfunk Orchester conducted by Paul Goodwin and with Arte dei Suonatori conducted by Martin Gester, Handel Gloria with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and Laurence Cummings, Judas Maccabaeus for Huddersfield Choral Society and Takuo Yuasa, Messiah with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Saul on tour with Cappella Amsterdam conducted by Daniel Reuss, Handel’s Tragic Heroines with the Classical Opera Company, the Nelson Mass with the London Mozart Players and for the St Endellion Festivals Golden Jubilee Appeal Concert at Cadogan Hall, Mahler Symphony No. 4 at the Nuremberg International Chamber Music Festival, a Purcell Programme with Les bijoux indiscrets, Schmann Requiem with Das Neue Orchester at the Nikolai-Kirche, Leipzig, Vivaldi Nulla in mundo pax sincera with the Ten Tors Orchestra, Four Seasons by Candlelight for Raymond Gubbay Ltd and a recital with Julius Drake for Pollok House Arts Society.

www.rubyhughes.com

Please note that this biography is not to be used for programmes. Current information is available on request.