JamesAtkinson

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  • Baritone
(c) Christopher Mann
(c) Christopher Mann

About James

British baritone James Atkinson is a graduate of the Royal College of Music Opera Studio, where he studied with Alison Wells. He is a BBC New Generation Artist (2023-2025) in conjunction with BBC Radio 3.

Already a distinguished Mozartian, he made his professional debut singing the role of Masetto in Don Giovanni for Welsh National Opera, returning in 2024 for Guglielmo Cosi fan tutte. He covered the role of Papageno for the Glyndebourne Festival and in the 2024/25 season will add the role of Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro to his repertoire with the Mozartists and Ian Page in London and Sicily.

Last season he sang Orest in Elektra with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and Jonathan Nott, Belcore in L'elisir d'amore for Wild Arts and Steuermann Tristan und Isolde for Luxembourg Opera. He also made his Edinburgh International Festival debut in St Matthew Passion with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Ryan Wigglesworth.

In concert, he sings Handel's Messiah with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and John Butt, Brahms Requiem with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Schubert orchestrated songs with the Luxembourg Philharmonic and Nicolas Ellis, and Brahms German Requiem with Handel and Haydn and Bernard Labadie in Boston.

A distinguished recitalist, his appearances include Amsterdam, Klosters Festival, Birmingham, Oxford, London's Wigmore Hall and his BBC Proms debut at Belfast's Ulster Hall.

His many awards include the Royal Over-Seas League Singers' Prize (2022), the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards (2018), the Mozart Competition and the Audience Prize at the Somerset Song Prize (2019).

James is based in London

Contact

Hannah Bishay

Hannah Bishay

Associate Artist Manager

Representation

Worldwide general management with Askonas Holt

Follow James

Season Highlights

Aug 2024
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Edinburgh International Festival Mendelssohn arr. Bach: St Matthew Passion Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor) BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Aug 2024 - Aug 2024
Ulster Hall, Belfast
Faure La Bonne Chanson Michael Pandya (piano) Van Kujik Quartet
Oct 2024
Cadogan Hall, London
The Count | Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro in concert Ian Page (conductor) The Mozartists
Dec 2024
BBC Hoddinott Hall
Handel: Messiah John Butt (conductor) BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Jan 2025 - Jan 2025
Wigmore Hall, London
works by Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms,
Apr 2025 - Apr 2025
Salle Franz Liszt, Geneva
Mahler Des Knaben Wunderhorn Marc Bourdeau (piano)

Video

Photos

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Selected Repertoire

Bernstein

Trouble in Tahiti (Sam)

Donizetti

L'elisir d'amore (Belcore)

Haydn

Il mondo della luna (Buonafede)

Maxwell Davies

The Lighthouse (Blazes)

Mozart

Don Giovanni (Masetto)   •   Cosi fan tutte (Guglielmo)   •   Die Zauberflöte (Papageno)

Poulenc

Les mamelles de Tirésias (Le Gendarme)

Purcell

Dido and Aeneas (Aeneas)

Ravel

L’heure espagnole (Ramiro)

Strauss

Elektra (Orest)

Wagner

Tristan und Isolde (Ein Steuermann)

News

Press

  • Boston: Brahms Requiem | Handel & Haydn Society

    Symphony Hall, Boston
    Apr 2024

    • Baritone James Atkinson carried his third- and sixth- movement solos (“Man passeth away like a shadow”) with dramatic intensity as the music shifts from asking the Lord, “And now, Lord, what do I wait for?” to “my hope is in Thee.

  • Guglielmo | Cosi Fan Tutte | Welsh National Opera

    Wales Millennium Centre
    Feb 2024

  • Bernard Labadie | Orchestre symphonique de Montréal | Haydn | Creation

    Maison Symphonique Montreal
    Apr 2023

    • ...et chez la basse James Atkinson, une prononciation claire, une très belle expressivité et une intelligence du texte (les notes délicatement posées à la fin de « Und Gott machte das Firmament » figurent agréablement les flocons de neige). ...and in the bass James Atkinson, a clear pronunciation, a very beautiful expressiveness and an intelligence of the text (the delicately placed notes at the end of "Und Gott machte das Firmament" pleasantly represent the snowflakes).

  • Masetto | Don Giovanni | Welsh National Opera

    Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff
    Feb 2022

    • The country bumpkins Zerlina (Harriet Eyley) and Masetto (James Atkinson, who made more of this usually one-dimensional role than anyone I have previously experienced) made an engaging contrast to all this heavy drama.

    • James Atkinson imposes a lot in the role and delivers, tall in nature and voice.

  • Homelands

    CD
    Oct 2023

    • Baritone James Atkinson sings a selection of songs from Schumann’s Liederkreis Op.39. They are all tastefully performed, technically assured and pleasing on the ear…

  • Wigmore Hall Debut | BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Live | Iain Burnside

    Wigmore Hall, London
    Jan 2025

    • Rising baritone provides perfect wintry fare Making his Wigmore recital debut with pianist Iain Burnside, Atkinson has the sort of vocal timbre that seems made to sing serious repertoire. James Atkinson possesses the perfect voice for them, too, and I mean that as a compliment. The rising young baritone, making his Wigmore recital debut, has the sort of vocal timbre that seems made to sing serious repertoire — weighty yet suave and noble, with a reserve of power that is compelling when unleashed yet wisely deployed only occasionally. He enunciates German texts intelligently, too, and without exaggeration or unnecessary histrionics. In that respect he’s perfectly matched by Iain Burnside’s fluent and cultured but mostly subdued piano accompaniments. Atkinson also has a secret weapon: a superbly sustained head voice, gentle and sweet, and all the more striking as a foil to his beefy middle range. He deployed those pianissimo top notes to fine effect towards the end of O Tod, where Brahms contrasts the different attitudes to death shown by those with everything to live for, and those with nothing. Atkinson and Burnside captured those polarities beautifully, and with a restraint that characterised their approach to all four songs.

Discography