Ruby Hughes

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. Born in London, she attended the Arts Educational School, Tring, furthering her studies in voice and ‘cello at Chetham’s School of Music and the Guildhall School of Music, before gaining a Masters degree with Distinction in Concert and Song at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Munich, working with Edith Wiens. In 2005, she was the Vocal Prize Winner at the Mozarteum Akademie, Salzburg, and in 2006, gained a Royal Philharmonic Society Susan Chilcott Award. Her other awards include the Vocal Prize in the 2002 Gerald Moore Competition, and a full scholarship to study with Lillian Watson at the Royal College of Music, London.

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, Le Statue / Pygmalion with Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company and Rose Maurrant / Street Scene for The Opera Group, a production which gained the 2008 Evening Standard Award. In Munich’s Haus der Kunst she performed the title role in Juditha Triumphans and Madeline Usher in Philip Glass’s The Fall of the House of Usher in a co production with the Bayerischer Staatsschauspiel, and in December sung Don Ramiro / La finta giardiniera at the Royal College of Music.

This year she recorded Silvia/ L’Isola disabitata by Guessepi Bonno for Harmonia Mundi with Pablo Heras-Casado at the Festival Internacional de Música Antigua, Madrid. It was the first recording and performance in modern times. She performed Lucinda / Don Chischiotte in Sierra Morena with Musikwerkstatt Vienna and Narcissa / Philemon und Baucis for Potsdam Early Music Festival conducted by Olof Boman and Akademie der Alte Musik Berlin, returning to Potsdam for the Winter Oper in Novemeber singing Sandrina in Haydn’s L’Infedelta delusa with Andreas Spering conducting

Concert engagements have included Handel Chandos Anthems with Marc Minkowski and Les Musicians du Louvre throughout France and Poland, St John Passion, and Messiah performances with the Orchestra of St John’s, the Philharmonia Orchestra and Adrian Partington, Música Saecolorum, recorded for ORF. She has sung with Stephen Cleobury Handel’s Ode for Queen Anne’s Birthday with the Academy of Ancient Music, and in the Creation for a Christmas Gala with the Philharmonia Orchestra/ Kings College Choir. She performed Mahler Symphony No. 4 at the Nuremberg International Chamber Music Festival, Mozart Mass in C Minor at the St Endellion Festival and with Münchner Symphonica and Pierrot Lunaire at the Pinakothek de Modern, Munich, as well as most recently a European concert tour with Cappella Amsterdam, Akademie der Alte Musik and Daniel Reuss in Handel’s Saul.

Her broadcasts include a Handel 250th Anniversary Concert for RTÉ Lyric FM with Andreas Spering and The RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (broadcast to the EU as part of the 2009 Handel celebrations) and In Tune for BBC Radio 3. She has sung live broadcasts for Bayerisches Rundfunk and Austrian Radio and Television (ORF).

     Current engagements include Michal /Saul at the 2011 Buxton Festival with Harry Christophers, Fortuna L’Incoronazione di Poppea and Roggiero / Tancredi at the Theater an der Wien with Christopher Moulds and René Jacobs respectively, Manto / Niobe (Cover) for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Rose Maurrant / Street Scene at Opéra de Toulon. She will be touring with Frieder Bernius in J. S. Bach B Minor Mass, and performing Bach Cantatas with Le Concert Lorraine and with Das Neue Orchester and Christoph Spering at the Concertgebouw, and the Leipzig Bach Festival, the Magnificat at Three Choirs Festival, Gloucester 2010, and St Matthew Passion at the London Handel Festival 2010 (also on tour with with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in 2012), Handel Arias with the London Handel Orchestra at the Wigmore Hall, Saul on tour with Daniel Reuss and Cappella Amsterdam, Handel’s Tragic Heroines with the Classical Opera Company, Haydn English Canzonettas with Salzburg Hoff Musik at the Eisenstadt Haydn Festival, 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 and Four  Seasons by Candlelight  for Raymond Gubbay Ltd at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Click here for Ruby's Biography (printable pdf format).

Click here for Ruby's CV (printable pdf format).

Photograph Thomas Dashuber.

Not for reproduction