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 gained a First Class Distinction Concert Diploma in Concert and Song at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Munich, and was awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Susan Chilcott Award. A former Samling Scholar, she 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 at the London Handel Festival, Michal / Saul at the Buxton Festival Euridice / L’Orfeo at the Aix-en-Provence Festival with René Jacobs, Minerva / The Return of Ulysses for English National Opera, She / King Arthur for Der Lautten Compagney, Berlin, The Statute / Pygmalion for the Early Opera Company, Argene / L’Olimpiade for Garsington Opera 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 for Musikwerkstatt Wien, Handel’s Tragic Heroines for Classical Opera, Sandrina / L’infedelta delusa for Potsdamer, Narcissa / Philemon und Baucis at the Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci and Rose Maurrant / Street Scene at the Opéra de Toulon. She also appeared in Sir Jonathan Miller’s production of the St Matthew Passion at the National Theatre.

In concert, she has sung under conductors including Jan Tomasz Adamus, Celso Antunes, Arie van Beek, Steuart Bedford, Frieder Bernius, Avner Biron, Olof Boman, Douglas Boyd, Harry Christophers, Jonathan Cohen, Laurence Cummings, Christian Curnyn, Paul Daniel, Paul Goodwin, Andrew Gourlay, HK Gruber, Philippe Herreweghe, Wolfgang Katschner, Robert King, Juanjo Mena, Marc Minkowski, Gianandrea Noseda, Ian Page, Philip Pickett, Daniel Reuss, Pascal Rophé, Andreas Spering, Christoph Spering, Philipp von Steinaecker, John Storgårds, Takuo Yuasa and Johannes Wildner, and with ensembles such as the Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin, Les Arts Florissants, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Les bijoux indiscrets, Capella Cracoviensis, Cappella Amsterdam, Le Concert Lorrain, Huddersfield Choral Society, the Israel Camerata, The King’s Consort, the London Handel Players, the London Mozart Players, the Manchester Camerata, the Munich Radio Orchestra, Musica Saeculorum, Das Neue Orchestra, the New London Consort, the Orchestre de Picardie, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra.

Festival appearances include Buxton, Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Eisenstadt Haydn, Göttingen, Schwetzingen, Potsdam, London Handel, Mananan, Nuremberg and St Endellion.

Her broadcasts and recordings include Bach Christmas Cantatas (SR2), Bach Wie freudig ist mein Herz (Fra Bernardo/ORF CD), a Handel 250th Anniversary Concert (RTÉ Lyric fM - broadcast to the EU as part of the Handel celebrations), Barber Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Chausson Poème de l”amour et de la Mer,, Berg 7 frühe and Altenberg Lieder, Britten 4 Chausson Francaise and Phaedra, Debussy Le livre de Baudelaire, Dowland songs, Fauré Mélodies, Grieg Peer Gynt, Haydn Arianna a Naxos and Scena di Berenice, Mahler Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Rückert Lieder, Mozart Ch’io mi scordi di te, Schubert Lieder, Schumann Lieder, Sibelius The Tempest, Richard Strauss Lieder (BBC Radio 3), Handel Chandos Anthems (Polish Radio), Saul (Netherlands Radio), Handel on Tour (BR – Klassik), Messiah (ORF CD), Philemon und Baucis (Deutschlandradio Kultur), Montsalvatge Sinfonia de Requiem (Chandos CD), Dowland Lachrime (Alpha CD) and Orphée - French Cantatas from the Göttingen Festival (NDR).

She appeared with Julius Drake at the 2012 West Cork Chamber Music and will return in 2013. Current engagements include Ella / In the Locked Room for Scottish Opera, Gismonda / Ottone at the Theater Magdeburg with Le Concert Lorraine, J. S. Bach Magnificat and Handel Dixit Dominus at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Crudel tiranno Amor with Arte dei Suonatori in Copenhagen and London, Gorecki Symphony of Sorrowful Songs at the 2013 BBC Proms, Messiah with the Dunedin Consort, the London Handel Players and the Ulster Orchestra, Maxwell Davies The Devils with the BBC Concert Orchestra, Mozart Arias on tour with the Israel Camerata, The Indian Queen at the Schwetzinger Festival with Le Concert Spirituel, Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 3 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Awake, sweet love at King’s Place, Christmas Concerts with the Bremen Philharmonic, a Wigmore Hall recital with Julius Drake and her debut at the 2013 Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus.

Last updated May 2013

Photograph Thomas Dashuber.

Not for reproduction