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In recent years the Cornish-born baritone Richard Jackson has become particularly known as a concert artist and a performer of new operas. After singing in the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, for three years, he attended The Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and worked privately with Pierre Bernac.
He was a founder member of The Songmakers' Almanac, visiting the USA, Hong Kong and the festivals of Edinburgh, Bath, Aldeburgh and Bergen with the group, and taking part in their series of recordings for Hyperion. Other recordings include Volume 12 in the Hyperion Schubert Edition with Graham Johnson, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and Britten's Purcell Realisations, both for Hyperion, and Bach's St Matthew Passion for United Records with Paul Goodwin.
Early operatic successes included Menotti's Maria Golovin, directed by the composer at the Camden Festival, Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas opposite Dame Janet Baker, Strauss's Capriccio for Glyndebourne Touring Opera, and Eugene Onegin at Aldeburgh under Rostropovich. He also collaborated with Pierre Audi in the British premiere of Rihm's Jakob Lenz at London's Almeida Festival and returned for the 1992 Festival in Stephen Oliver's Mario and the Magician . Other opera projects have included Laurent Therese Raquin , a new opera by Finnissy for The Garden Venture, Paul Barker's La Malinche in Mexico City , Mozart's La Finta Giardinera for Opera North, Finnissy's Vaudeville for the Warsaw Autumn Festival, Evangelistitesto in Monteverdi/Weir's Missa e Combattimento for Ensemble Interculturel at La Monnaie in Brussels, Nicola Lefanu's The Wildman at the 1995 Aldeburgh Festival and Aeneas in Syria.
Richard also undertakes extensive concert work, including appearances with Willcocks, Marriner, Bertini, Gardiner and Hickox. He has performed Finnissy's The Cry of Zephaniah for BBC Television, Handel's Belshazzar at the Bath Festival, Christus in Jonathan Miller's dramatisation of Bach's St Matthew Passion at the Festival d'Ambronay in France, Britain and Spain, Britten's War Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall and St Matthew Passion with the City of London Sinfonia at the Barbican. Recent engagements have included a recital of Shakespeare settings at the Philharmonie in Berlin, a concert at Wigmore Hall to celebrate the 70th birthday of Eric Sams, a concert at the Purcell Room with music by the contemporary American composer Henry Brant, a programme of Strauss Lieder devised by Graham Johnson, based on Strauss's Capriccio for the Songmakers' Almanac with Adrian Thompson and Felicity Lott at Wigmore Hall, an opera workshop with the ENO Contemporary Opera Studio and the composer Julian Grant performing his latest chamber opera Chemistry, an evening of Schubert Lieder with Graham Johnson and the Songmakers' Almanac and a recital of early twentieth-century French song for BBC Radio 3.
He has taught both German and French song at the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal Northern College of Music and at Trinity College of Music, and is in demand as leader of Master Classes.
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