Ian Bostridge
Encyclopedia
Ian Bostridge CBE
(born 25 December 1964) is an English
tenor
, well known for his performances as an opera
singer and as a song recitalist.
and Westminster School
, where he was a Queen's Scholar. At Westminster he originally intended to work in theoretical physics. He developed a unified theory of gravity and electromagnetism
, which he submitted to Roger Penrose
, who at the time was a leading authority on the subject. However after a few years he became disillusioned with physics and decided to specialize in the arts.
He then attended the Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge
, where he achieved a First in modern history
and received an M.Phil in the history and philosophy of science
. He received his D.Phil from Oxford in 1990, on the significance of witchcraft
in English public life from 1650 to 1750, and was a British Academy
post-doctoral fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford
, before embarking on a career as a singer. His book "Witchcraft and its Transformations 1650 to 1750" was published as an Oxford Historical Monograph in 1997. This has been an influential work in the study of the pre-Enlightenment, "achieving that rarest of feats in the scholarly world: taking a well-worn subject and ensuring that it will never be looked at in quite the same way again" (Noel Malcolm
, TLS
). In 1991 he won the National Federation of Music Societies Award and from 1992 received support from the Young Concert Artists Trust
.
debut in 1993; his Purcell Room
debut (an acclaimed Winterreise
) and his Aldeburgh Festival
debut in 1994; in 1995 he gave his first solo recital in the Wigmore Hall (winning the Royal Philharmonic Society's
Debut Award); in 1996 he gave recitals in Lyon
, Cologne
, London and at the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham
and Edinburgh
Festivals, and in 1997 at the Alte Oper
, Frankfurt
.
On the concert platform he has appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra
under Sir Colin Davis
and Mstislav Rostropovich
, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
under Sir Charles Mackerras
, and the City of Birmingham Symphony and Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle
.
His first solo-featured recording was for Hyperion Records
, a Britten
song recital, The Red Cockatoo with Graham Johnson. His subsequent recording of Die schöne Müllerin in Hyperion's Schubert Edition won the Gramophone's Solo Vocal Award for 1996; he won the prize again in 1998 for a recording of Schumann Lieder with his regular collaborator, the pianist Julius Drake. An EMI Classics exclusive artist since 1996, he is a twelve-time Grammy nominee. His CDs have won most of the major record prizes including Grammy, Edison, Japanese Recording Academy, Brit, Echo Klassik and Deutsche Schallplattenpreis. His recording of Schubert's "Die Forelle" with Julius Drake forms part of the soundtrack of the 2011 movie "Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows".
Bostridge made his operatic debut in 1994, aged 29, as
Lysander
in A Midsummer Night's Dream
with the Australian Opera at the Edinburgh Festival, directed by Baz Luhrmann. In 1996 made his debut with the English National Opera
, singing his first Tamino (The Magic Flute
). In 1997 he sang Quint in Deborah Warner
's new production of The Turn of the Screw
under Sir Colin Davis for the Royal Opera
. He has recorded Flute (Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream) with Sir Colin Davis
for Philips Classics; Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail
) with William Christie
for Erato; Tom Rakewell (The Rake's Progress
) under John Eliot Gardiner
for Deutsche Grammophon
(Grammy Award); and Captain Vere (Billy Budd
) with Daniel Harding. In 2007 he appeared at the ENO in the role of Aschenbach in Britten's Death in Venice
, in a production by Deborah Warner.
In 1997 he made a film of Schubert
's Winterreise for Channel 4
directed by David Alden
; he has been the subject of a South Bank Show profile documentary on ITV and presented a BBC4 film on Leoš Janáček
. He has written on music for The Guardian
, The Times Literary Supplement
, Opernwelt, BBC Music Magazine, Opera Now and The Independent
.
Later engagements included recitals in Paris
, Stockholm
, Lisbon
, Brussels
, Amsterdam
and the Vienna Konzerthaus
. In North America
he appeared in recitals in New York City
at the Frick Collection
in 1998 and Alice Tully Hall
in 1999 and made his Carnegie Hall
debut under Sir Neville Marriner
. Also in 1998 he sang Vasek in a new production of The Bartered Bride
under Bernard Haitink
for the Royal Opera and made his debut at the Munich Festival as Nerone (L'incoronazione di Poppea
) and in recital (Winterreise at the Cuvillés Theatre). In 1999 he made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
under Sir Roger Norrington
. He works regularly with the pianists Julius Drake
, Mitsuko Uchida
and Covent Garden music director Antonio Pappano
.
In summer 2000, Bostridge gave the fifth annual Edinburgh University Festival Lecture (previous lecturers included George Steiner, Pierre Boulez and Alfred Brendel) entitled "Music and Magic".
In 2004, Bostridge was made CBE for his services to music. He is an honorary fellow of Corpus Christi College and St John's College, Oxford, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of St Andrews in 2004.
His brother is the Whitbread-shortlisted biographer and critic Mark Bostridge
, whose book "Florence Nightingale: the woman and her legend" was published in the UK in 2008. They are great-grandchildren of John Joyce
, "Tiny Joyce", a cousin of James Joyce and famous goalkeeper who played for Tottenham Hotspur
before the First World War.http://www.guardian.co.uk/family/story/0,,1738804,00.html.
On 11 November 2009 Bostridge sang Agnus Dei from Benjamin Britten
's War Requiem
, at the Armistice Day service in Westminster Abbey
. This uses the words of war poet Wilfred Owen
's "At a Calvary near the Ancre
". This Service marks the loss of the WWI generation, whose last members died earlier the same year.
Bostridge was for a time the music columnist for Standpoint
magazine, the new monthly publication launched "to celebrate Western civilisation"; he continues to serve on the magazine's advisory board. He is a patron of the Music Libraries Trust and the Macmillan Cancer Support Guards Chapel Carol Concert.
A collection of his writings on music, "A Singer's Notebook", was published by Faber and Faber
in September 2011 to widespread acclaim. "A consistently lively, learned, urbane and passionate book, once opened not likely to be closed until you have read it all" wrote the philosopher Michael Tanner in BBC Music Magazine.
, and they have a son and a daughter. His hobbies include reading, cooking, and looking at pictures. His brother is the biographer and critic Mark Bostridge
.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born 25 December 1964) is an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
, well known for his performances as an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
singer and as a song recitalist.
Early life and education
Bostridge was born on 25 December 1964 to Leslie Bostridge and Lillian (née Clark). He studied at Dulwich College Preparatory SchoolDulwich College Preparatory School
Dulwich Preparatory School DCPS is a private preparatory school in Dulwich, south London, England for children aged 3–13 years. It was founded in 1885, and is the largest boys preparatory school in the United Kingdom. It will be known formally as "Dulwich Prep London" from September 2011.The...
and Westminster School
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
, where he was a Queen's Scholar. At Westminster he originally intended to work in theoretical physics. He developed a unified theory of gravity and electromagnetism
Electromagnetism
Electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. The other three are the strong interaction, the weak interaction and gravitation...
, which he submitted to Roger Penrose
Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College...
, who at the time was a leading authority on the subject. However after a few years he became disillusioned with physics and decided to specialize in the arts.
He then attended the Universities of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
and Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, where he achieved a First in modern history
Modern history
Modern history, or the modern era, describes the historical timeline after the Middle Ages. Modern history can be further broken down into the early modern period and the late modern period after the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution...
and received an M.Phil in the history and philosophy of science
History and philosophy of science
The history and philosophy of science is an academic discipline that encompasses the philosophy of science and the history of science. Although many scholars in the field are trained primarily as either historians or as philosophers, there are degree-granting departments of HPS at several...
. He received his D.Phil from Oxford in 1990, on the significance of witchcraft
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
in English public life from 1650 to 1750, and was a British Academy
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...
post-doctoral fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Corpus Christi College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom...
, before embarking on a career as a singer. His book "Witchcraft and its Transformations 1650 to 1750" was published as an Oxford Historical Monograph in 1997. This has been an influential work in the study of the pre-Enlightenment, "achieving that rarest of feats in the scholarly world: taking a well-worn subject and ensuring that it will never be looked at in quite the same way again" (Noel Malcolm
Noel Malcolm
Noel Robert Malcolm FBA FRSL is a modern English historian, writer, and columnist.-Life:Malcolm was educated at Eton College , read History at Peterhouse, Cambridge, wrote his doctorate dissertation at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was for a time Fellow of Gonville and Caius College,...
, TLS
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
). In 1991 he won the National Federation of Music Societies Award and from 1992 received support from the Young Concert Artists Trust
Young Concert Artists Trust
Young Concert Artists' Trust is a charity which identifies, supports, nurtures and promotes outstanding young classical musicians based in the United Kingdom....
.
Career
Bostridge made his Wigmore HallWigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...
debut in 1993; his Purcell Room
Purcell Room
The Purcell Room is a concert and performance venue which forms part of the Southbank Centre, one of central London's leading cultural complexes. It is named after the 17th century English composer Henry Purcell and has 370 seats....
debut (an acclaimed Winterreise
Winterreise
Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...
) and his Aldeburgh Festival
Aldeburgh Festival
The Aldeburgh Festival is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on the main concert hall at Snape Maltings...
debut in 1994; in 1995 he gave his first solo recital in the Wigmore Hall (winning the Royal Philharmonic Society's
Royal Philharmonic Society
The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...
Debut Award); in 1996 he gave recitals in Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
, Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, London and at the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham
Cheltenham Festival
The Cheltenham Festival is one of the most prestigious meetings in the National Hunt racing calendar in the United Kingdom, and has race prize money second only to the Grand National...
and Edinburgh
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
Festivals, and in 1997 at the Alte Oper
Alte Oper
The Alte Oper is a major concert hall and former opera house in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The building was inaugurated in 1880. Many important works have been premiered at the Alte Oper, including Carl Orff's Carmina Burana in 1937....
, Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
.
On the concert platform he has appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
under Sir Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE is an English conductor. His repertoire is broad, but among the composers with whom he is particularly associated are Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett....
and Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Rostropovich
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, KBE , known to close friends as Slava, was a Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. He is widely considered to have been the greatest cellist of the second half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest of...
, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is Scotland's national chamber orchestra, based in Edinburgh. One of Scotland’s five National Performing Arts Companies, the SCO performs throughout Scotland, including annual tours of the Scottish Highlands and Islands and South of Scotland. The SCO appears...
under Sir Charles Mackerras
Charles Mackerras
Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH, CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan...
, and the City of Birmingham Symphony and Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle
Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic ....
.
His first solo-featured recording was for Hyperion Records
Hyperion Records
Hyperion Records is an independent British classical record label.-History:The company was named after Hyperion, one of the Titans of Greek mythology. It was founded by George Edward Perry, widely known as "Ted", in 1980. Early LP releases included rarely recorded 20th century British music by...
, a Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
song recital, The Red Cockatoo with Graham Johnson. His subsequent recording of Die schöne Müllerin in Hyperion's Schubert Edition won the Gramophone's Solo Vocal Award for 1996; he won the prize again in 1998 for a recording of Schumann Lieder with his regular collaborator, the pianist Julius Drake. An EMI Classics exclusive artist since 1996, he is a twelve-time Grammy nominee. His CDs have won most of the major record prizes including Grammy, Edison, Japanese Recording Academy, Brit, Echo Klassik and Deutsche Schallplattenpreis. His recording of Schubert's "Die Forelle" with Julius Drake forms part of the soundtrack of the 2011 movie "Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows".
Bostridge made his operatic debut in 1994, aged 29, as
Lysander
Lysander (Shakespeare)
Lysander is one of the iconic lovers in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream. A handsome young man of Athens, Lysander is in love with Hermia and plans to run away from her father with her to escape Athenian law and wed. But his plans are disrupted when Oberon decides to have some...
in A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera)
A Midsummer Night's Dream is an opera with music by Benjamin Britten and set to a libretto adapted by the composer and Peter Pears from William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream...
with the Australian Opera at the Edinburgh Festival, directed by Baz Luhrmann. In 1996 made his debut with the English National Opera
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
, singing his first Tamino (The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
). In 1997 he sang Quint in Deborah Warner
Deborah Warner
Deborah Warner CBE is a British director of theatre and opera known for her interpretations of the works of Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Georg Büchner, and Henrik Ibsen, and for her long-term working relationship with the Irish actress Fiona Shaw.-Early years:Warner was born in Oxfordshire,...
's new production of The Turn of the Screw
The Turn of the Screw
The Turn of the Screw is a novella written by Henry James. Originally published in 1898, it is ostensibly a ghost story.Due to its ambiguous content, it became a favourite text of academics who subscribe to New Criticism. The novella has had differing interpretations, often mutually exclusive...
under Sir Colin Davis for the Royal Opera
Royal Opera, London
The Royal Opera is an opera company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Along with the English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Company, it was known by that title until 1968...
. He has recorded Flute (Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream) with Sir Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE is an English conductor. His repertoire is broad, but among the composers with whom he is particularly associated are Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett....
for Philips Classics; Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
) with William Christie
William Christie (musician)
William Lincoln Christie is an American-born French conductor and harpsichordist. He is noted as a specialist in baroque repertoire and as the founder of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants....
for Erato; Tom Rakewell (The Rake's Progress
The Rake's Progress
The Rake's Progress is an opera in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings A Rake's Progress of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on May 2, 1947, in a Chicago...
) under John Eliot Gardiner
John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique...
for Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
(Grammy Award); and Captain Vere (Billy Budd
Billy Budd
Billy Budd is a short novel by Herman Melville.Billy Budd can also refer to:*Billy Budd , a 1962 film produced, directed, and co-written by Peter Ustinov, based on Melville's novel...
) with Daniel Harding. In 2007 he appeared at the ENO in the role of Aschenbach in Britten's Death in Venice
Death in Venice
The novella Death in Venice was written by the German author Thomas Mann, and was first published in 1913 as Der Tod in Venedig. The plot of the work presents a great writer suffering writer's block who visits Venice and is liberated and uplifted, then increasingly obsessed, by the sight of a...
, in a production by Deborah Warner.
In 1997 he made a film of Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
's Winterreise for Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
directed by David Alden
David Alden (director)
David Alden is a prolific theater and film director known for his post-modernist settings of opera. He is the twin brother of Christopher Alden, also an opera director in the revisionist mold...
; he has been the subject of a South Bank Show profile documentary on ITV and presented a BBC4 film on Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
. He has written on music for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
, Opernwelt, BBC Music Magazine, Opera Now and The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
.
Later engagements included recitals in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
and the Vienna Konzerthaus
Konzerthaus, Vienna
The Konzerthaus in Vienna was opened 1913. It is situated in the third district just at the edge of the first district in Vienna. Since it was founded it has always tried to emphasise both tradition and innovative musical styles.In 1890 the first ideas for a Haus für Musikfeste came about...
. In North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
he appeared in recitals in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
at the Frick Collection
Frick Collection
The Frick Collection is an art museum located in Manhattan, New York City, United States.- History :It is housed in the former Henry Clay Frick House, which was designed by Thomas Hastings and constructed in 1913-1914. John Russell Pope altered and enlarged the building in the early 1930s to adapt...
in 1998 and Alice Tully Hall
Alice Tully Hall
Alice Tully Hall is a concert hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. It is named for Alice Tully, a New York performer and philanthropist whose donations assisted in the construction of the hall...
in 1999 and made his Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
debut under Sir Neville Marriner
Neville Marriner
Sir Neville Marriner is an English conductor and violinist.-Biography:Marriner was born in Lincoln and studied at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire. He played the violin in the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Martin String Quartet and London Symphony Orchestra, playing with the...
. Also in 1998 he sang Vasek in a new production of The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The opera is considered to have made a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It was composed during the period 1863–66, and first performed at the...
under Bernard Haitink
Bernard Haitink
Bernard Johan Herman Haitink, CH, KBE is a Dutch conductor and violinist.- Early life :Haitink was born in Amsterdam, the son of Willem Haitink and Anna Haitink. He studied music at the conservatoire in Amsterdam...
for the Royal Opera and made his debut at the Munich Festival as Nerone (L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea is an Italian baroque opera comprising a prologue and three acts, first performed in Venice during the 1642–43 carnival season. The music, attributed to Claudio Monteverdi, is a setting of a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello...
) and in recital (Winterreise at the Cuvillés Theatre). In 1999 he made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
The Vienna Philharmonic is an orchestra in Austria, regularly considered one of the finest in the world....
under Sir Roger Norrington
Roger Norrington
Sir Roger Arthur Carver Norrington, CBE is a British conductor. He is the son of Sir Arthur Norrington and his brother is Humphrey Thomas Norrington....
. He works regularly with the pianists Julius Drake
Julius Drake
Julius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...
, Mitsuko Uchida
Mitsuko Uchida
, born 20 December 1948, is a Japanese naturalized British classical pianist.-Career:Born in Atami, a seaside town close to Tokyo, Japan, Uchida moved to Vienna, Austria, with her diplomat parents when she was twelve years old, after her father was named the Japanese ambassador to Austria...
and Covent Garden music director Antonio Pappano
Antonio Pappano
Antonio Pappano is a British conductor and pianist of Italian parentage.Pappano's family relocated to England from Castelfranco in Miscano near Benevento, Italy in 1958 and at the time of his birth his parents worked in the restaurant business, but Pasquale Pappano, his father, was by vocation a...
.
In summer 2000, Bostridge gave the fifth annual Edinburgh University Festival Lecture (previous lecturers included George Steiner, Pierre Boulez and Alfred Brendel) entitled "Music and Magic".
In 2004, Bostridge was made CBE for his services to music. He is an honorary fellow of Corpus Christi College and St John's College, Oxford, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of St Andrews in 2004.
His brother is the Whitbread-shortlisted biographer and critic Mark Bostridge
Mark Bostridge
Mark Bostridge is a British writer and critic. He was born in 1960 and educated at the University of Oxford, where he was awarded the Gladstone Memorial Prize.His first book was Vera Brittain: A Life, co-written with Paul Berry and published in 1995...
, whose book "Florence Nightingale: the woman and her legend" was published in the UK in 2008. They are great-grandchildren of John Joyce
John Joyce
John Stanislaus Joyce was the father of writer James Joyce, and a well known Dublin man about town. The son of James and Ellen Joyce, John Joyce grew up in Cork, where his mother's family, which claimed kinship to "Liberator" Daniel O'Connell, was quite prominent.Following his father's death in...
, "Tiny Joyce", a cousin of James Joyce and famous goalkeeper who played for Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham Hotspur F.C.
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club , commonly referred to as Spurs, is an English Premier League football club based in Tottenham, north London. The club's home stadium is White Hart Lane....
before the First World War.http://www.guardian.co.uk/family/story/0,,1738804,00.html.
On 11 November 2009 Bostridge sang Agnus Dei from Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's War Requiem
War Requiem
The War Requiem, Op. 66 is a large-scale, non-liturgical setting of the Requiem Mass composed by Benjamin Britten mostly in 1961 and completed January 1962. Interspersed with the traditional Latin texts, in telling juxtaposition, are settings of Wilfred Owen poems...
, at the Armistice Day service in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
. This uses the words of war poet Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War...
's "At a Calvary near the Ancre
At a Calvary near the Ancre
At a Calvary near the Ancre is a poem by Wilfred Owen. It deals with the atrocities of World War I....
". This Service marks the loss of the WWI generation, whose last members died earlier the same year.
Bostridge was for a time the music columnist for Standpoint
Standpoint (magazine)
Standpoint is a monthly British cultural and political magazine. Its premier issue was published at the end of May 2008 – the first launch of a major current affairs publication in the UK in more than a decade....
magazine, the new monthly publication launched "to celebrate Western civilisation"; he continues to serve on the magazine's advisory board. He is a patron of the Music Libraries Trust and the Macmillan Cancer Support Guards Chapel Carol Concert.
A collection of his writings on music, "A Singer's Notebook", was published by Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
in September 2011 to widespread acclaim. "A consistently lively, learned, urbane and passionate book, once opened not likely to be closed until you have read it all" wrote the philosopher Michael Tanner in BBC Music Magazine.
Personal life
In 1992 Bostridge married the writer and publisher Lucasta MillerLucasta Miller
Lucasta Frances Elizabeth Miller is an English writer and literary journalist.-Education:Miller was educated at Westminster School and Lady Margaret Hall Oxford, receiving a congratulatory first in English in 1988. She was awarded a PhD at the University of East Anglia in 2007.-Career:Miller...
, and they have a son and a daughter. His hobbies include reading, cooking, and looking at pictures. His brother is the biographer and critic Mark Bostridge
Mark Bostridge
Mark Bostridge is a British writer and critic. He was born in 1960 and educated at the University of Oxford, where he was awarded the Gladstone Memorial Prize.His first book was Vera Brittain: A Life, co-written with Paul Berry and published in 1995...
.
Discography
- Three Baroque Tenors Arias for BeardJohn Beard (tenor)John Beard was an English tenor of the 18th century. He is best remembered for creating an extensive number of roles in the operas and oratorios of George Frideric Handel....
, Borosini and Fabri. Bernard Labadie (EMI Classics 2010) - Adès: The Tempest with Thomas AdèsThomas AdèsThomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
(EMI Classics, 2009) - Schubert: Schwanengesang with Antonio PappanoAntonio PappanoAntonio Pappano is a British conductor and pianist of Italian parentage.Pappano's family relocated to England from Castelfranco in Miscano near Benevento, Italy in 1958 and at the time of his birth his parents worked in the restaurant business, but Pasquale Pappano, his father, was by vocation a...
(EMI Classics, 2009) - Schubert: The Wanderer: Lieder and Fragments with Leif Ove AndsnesLeif Ove AndsnesLeif Ove Andsnes is a Norwegian pianist and an ardent champion of the works of Edvard Grieg.-Biography:He studied with Jiří Hlinka at the Bergen Music Conservatory and made his debut in Oslo in 1987, in Britain at the Edinburgh Festival with the Oslo Philharmonic in 1989, and in the United States...
(EMI Classics, 2008) - Great Handel with Harry Bickett (EMI Classics, 2007)
- Schubert: Lieder and Sonata with Leif Ove AndsnesLeif Ove AndsnesLeif Ove Andsnes is a Norwegian pianist and an ardent champion of the works of Edvard Grieg.-Biography:He studied with Jiří Hlinka at the Bergen Music Conservatory and made his debut in Oslo in 1987, in Britain at the Edinburgh Festival with the Oslo Philharmonic in 1989, and in the United States...
(EMI Classics, 2007) - Wolf: Lieder with Antonio PappanoAntonio PappanoAntonio Pappano is a British conductor and pianist of Italian parentage.Pappano's family relocated to England from Castelfranco in Miscano near Benevento, Italy in 1958 and at the time of his birth his parents worked in the restaurant business, but Pasquale Pappano, his father, was by vocation a...
(EMI Classics, 2006) - Britten: Les Illuminations, Serenade, Nocturne with Simon RattleSimon RattleSir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic ....
(EMI Classics, 2005) - Schubert: 25 Lieder with Julius DrakeJulius DrakeJulius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...
(EMI Classics, 2005) - Wagner: Tristan und Isolde with Antonio PappanoAntonio PappanoAntonio Pappano is a British conductor and pianist of Italian parentage.Pappano's family relocated to England from Castelfranco in Miscano near Benevento, Italy in 1958 and at the time of his birth his parents worked in the restaurant business, but Pasquale Pappano, his father, was by vocation a...
(EMI Classics, 2005) - Schubert: die Schöne Müllerin with Mitsuko UchidaMitsuko Uchida, born 20 December 1948, is a Japanese naturalized British classical pianist.-Career:Born in Atami, a seaside town close to Tokyo, Japan, Uchida moved to Vienna, Austria, with her diplomat parents when she was twelve years old, after her father was named the Japanese ambassador to Austria...
(EMI Classics, 2005) - Schubert: Lieder and Sonata No.21 with Leif Ove AndsnesLeif Ove AndsnesLeif Ove Andsnes is a Norwegian pianist and an ardent champion of the works of Edvard Grieg.-Biography:He studied with Jiří Hlinka at the Bergen Music Conservatory and made his debut in Oslo in 1987, in Britain at the Edinburgh Festival with the Oslo Philharmonic in 1989, and in the United States...
(EMI Classics, 2005) - Schubert: Winterreise with Leif Ove AndsnesLeif Ove AndsnesLeif Ove Andsnes is a Norwegian pianist and an ardent champion of the works of Edvard Grieg.-Biography:He studied with Jiří Hlinka at the Bergen Music Conservatory and made his debut in Oslo in 1987, in Britain at the Edinburgh Festival with the Oslo Philharmonic in 1989, and in the United States...
(EMI Classics, 2004) - Monteverdi: Orfeo with Emmanuelle HaïmEmmanuelle HaïmEmmanuelle Haïm is a French harpsichordist and conductor with a particular interest in early music and Baroque music....
(Virgin Classics, 2004) - Purcell: Dido and Aeneas with Emmanuelle HaïmEmmanuelle HaïmEmmanuelle Haïm is a French harpsichordist and conductor with a particular interest in early music and Baroque music....
(Virgin Classics, 2003) - Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge with Bernard HaitinkBernard HaitinkBernard Johan Herman Haitink, CH, KBE is a Dutch conductor and violinist.- Early life :Haitink was born in Amsterdam, the son of Willem Haitink and Anna Haitink. He studied music at the conservatoire in Amsterdam...
(EMI Classics, 2003) - Schubert: Lieder and Sonata D850 with Leif Ove AndsnesLeif Ove AndsnesLeif Ove Andsnes is a Norwegian pianist and an ardent champion of the works of Edvard Grieg.-Biography:He studied with Jiří Hlinka at the Bergen Music Conservatory and made his debut in Oslo in 1987, in Britain at the Edinburgh Festival with the Oslo Philharmonic in 1989, and in the United States...
(EMI Classics, 2003) - Mozart: Idomeneo with Charles MackerrasCharles MackerrasSir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH, CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan...
(EMI Classics, 2002) - Britten: Canticles & Folksongs with Julius DrakeJulius DrakeJulius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...
(Virgin Classics, 2002) - Britten: Turn of the Screw with Daniel HardingDaniel HardingDaniel Harding is a British conductor.Harding studied trumpet at Chetham's School of Music and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra at age 13. At age 17, Harding assembled a group of musicians to perform Pierrot Lunaire of Arnold Schoenberg, and sent a tape of the performance to Simon...
(Virgin Classics, 2002) - The Songs of Robert Schumann, Vol.7 with Dorothea RöschmannDorothea RöschmannDorothea Röschmann is a German opera soprano from Flensburg.-Education and early life:Röschmann studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, under Barbara Schlick at the Akademie für Alte Musik in Bremen, and subsequently in Los Angeles, New York, Tel Aviv, and under Vera Rózsa in London...
and Graham Johnson (Hyperion, 2002) - The Noël Coward Songbook with Jeffrey TateJeffrey TateDr Jeffrey Tate CBE is an English conductor.Tate was born with spina bifida, and also has kyphosis. His family moved to Farnham, Surrey when he was young and he attended Farnham Grammar School between 1954 and 1961 gaining a State Scholarship to Cambridge University, where he directed theatre...
(EMI Classics, 2002) - Schubert: Lieder volume II with Julius DrakeJulius DrakeJulius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...
(EMI Classics, 2001) - Henze: Songs with Julius DrakeJulius DrakeJulius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...
(EMI Classics, 2001) - Bach: Cantatas and Arias with Fabio BiondiFabio BiondiFabio Biondi is an Italian violinist and conductor.Born in Palermo, Sicily, Biondi began his international career at the age of 12 playing a concerto with the RAI Symphony Orchestra. When he was 16, he performed Bach's violin concertos at the Musikverein in Vienna...
(Virgin Classics, 2000) - Handel: L'allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato with John NelsonJohn Nelson (conductor)John Wilton Nelson is an American conductor. Nelson studied at Wheaton College, and later at the Juilliard School of Music with Jean Morel ....
(Virgin Classics, 2000) - The English Songbook with Julius DrakeJulius DrakeJulius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...
(EMI Classics, 1999) - Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress with John Eliot GardinerJohn Eliot GardinerSir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique...
(Deutsche Grammophon, 1999) - Schumann: Liederkreis & Dichterliebe etc. with Julius DrakeJulius DrakeJulius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...
(EMI Classics, 1998) - Schubert: Lieder volume I with Julius DrakeJulius DrakeJulius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...
(EMI Classics, 1998) - Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin (Schubert Edition, Vol.25) with Graham Johnson and Dietrich Fischer-DieskauDietrich Fischer-DieskauDietrich Fischer-Dieskau is a retired German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous lieder performers of the post-war period and "one of the supreme vocal artists of the 20th century"...
(Hyperion, 1996) - Britten: The Red Cockatoo & Other Songs with Graham Johnson (Hyperion, 1995)
- Nyman: Noises, Sounds & Sweet AirsNoises, Sounds & Sweet AirsNoises, Sounds & Sweet Airs is a 1991 opera by Michael Nyman that began as an opera-ballet titled La Princesse de Milan choreographed by Karine Saporta. The libretto is William Shakespeare's The Tempest, as abridged by the composer...
with Dominique Debart (Argo, 1995) - Bach: St Matthew Passion (EvangelistEvangelist (Bach)The Evangelist in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach is the tenor part in his oratorios and Passions who narrates the exact words of the Bible, translated by Martin Luther, in recitative, namely in the works St John Passion, St Matthew Passion, and the Christmas Oratorio, also in the St Mark...
) with Philippe HerreweghePhilippe HerreweghePhilippe Herreweghe is a Flemish conductor.In his school years at the University of Ghent, Herreweghe combined studies in medical science and psychiatry with a musical education at the Ghent Conservatory, where Marcel Gazelle, Yehudi Menuhin's accompanist, was his piano teacher...
(Harmonia Mundi, 1999)