Charles Daniels

Charles Daniels is an English singer active as both soloist and ensemble member in repertoires spanning early music and contemporary works. His training began as a chorister in the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, an ensemble whose alumni typically acquire broad stylistic insight along with solid vocal technique. He later attended Winchester College before returning to King's College, Cambridge, this time as a tenor on a full university scholarship awarded after a rigorous audition that placed him in the chapel chorus. There he read natural sciences and music for his joint degree.

Following graduation he continued at the Royal College of Music in London, supported by a Foundation Scholarship and working under Edward Brooks. He competed successfully in two prominent British contests, the Great Grimsby International Competition for Singers and the 1986 GKN English Song Award, earning major prizes in each, among them the Hubert Parry Prize for his chosen program.

His performances have reached audiences throughout Europe as well as in Israel, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Core pieces in his repertoire include major Baroque choral scores such as the cantatas, masses, and passions of Bach together with Handel’s The Triumph of Time and Truth, Judas Maccabaeus, Solomon, and Acis and Galatea; he is also a frequent Evangelist in Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions. Modern-instrument ensembles with which he has appeared include the RTE Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and the Gulbenkian Choir and Orchestra. Period-instrument collaborations encompass the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music, the King’s Consort, and Les Arts Florissants, the last of which took him on tour in Lully’s Atys to the Montpellier Festival, Caen, Madrid, the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and New York. Festival engagements have included the Halle Handel Festival, the Flanders Festival in Bruges, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage 2000.

Additional Baroque credits feature Monteverdi’s Vespers, performed with the Nederlandse Bachvereniging in December 2000; Purcell’s Dioclesian, given at London’s Barbican Centre with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music; Purcell’s The Fairy Queen; Rameau’s La guirlande; and Charpentier’s Vêpres aux Jésuites. Recordings include the role of Peachum in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, several Purcell discs for Hyperion, The Fairy Queen, Bach’s Easter Oratorio, the Charpentier Vespers, and Haydn’s St. Cecilia Mass. With the Hilliard Ensemble he contributed to an ECM recording devoted to the music of Perotin.

Beyond the Baroque he has performed Schubert’s Mass in E-flat, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Puccini’s Missa di Gloria, as well as Wojciech Kilar’s Missa Pro Pace before Pope John Paul II. He was seen worldwide on television during the BBC’s Millennium Live 2000, taking part in an all-Handel program with James O’Donnell and the Academy of Ancient Music at Westminster Abbey.