JamesAtkinson
- Baritone
About James
British baritone James Atkinson is an Associate Artist with The Mozartists and a graduate of the Royal College of Music Opera Studio, where he studied with Alison Wells. He was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist from 2023 to 2025 and is winner of the 2022 Royal Over-Seas League Singers Prize.
He made his professional debut as Masetto in Don Giovanni for Welsh National Opera, returning as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte. Further opera highlights include Orest in Elektra with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra under Jonathan Nott, Belcore in L'elisir d'amore for Wild Arts, Steuermann in Tristan und Isolde for Luxembourg Opera, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro with The Mozartists under Ian Page, and his role debut as Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro on tour in the Netherlands with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. Most recently, he appeared as Achilla in Handel's Giulio Cesare at The Grange Festival with the Early Opera Company under Christian Curnyn.
Highlights of the 2026/27 season include Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Ryan Wigglesworth in Glasgow, Fauré's Requiem with St Albans Bach Choir, Handel's Messiah with the Choir of The Queen's College, Oxford, and Bach's Christmas Oratorio at Winchester Cathedral with Florilegium. He also appears as Pilate in Bach's St John Passion with Polyphony.
James's concert repertoire includes Walton's Belshazzar's Feast with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and Jonathan Nott, Haydn's The Creation with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Bernard Labadie, orchestrated Schubert songs with the Luxembourg Philharmonic and Nicolas Ellis, Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, Fauré's Requiem with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Handel's Messiah with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under John Butt and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Copenhagen, Bach's St John Passion with Polyphony and Stephen Layton, and his Edinburgh International Festival debut in Bach's St Matthew Passion with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Ryan Wigglesworth.
A distinguished recitalist, he has appeared at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Klosters Music, and in Barcelona, Birmingham, Oxford and London's Wigmore Hall, with a BBC Proms debut at Belfast's Ulster Hall.
Representation
Worldwide general management with Askonas Holt
Follow James
Season Highlights
Video
- Playing
James Atkinson singing The Count from The Marriage of Figaro with Ian Page and The Mozartists at Cadogan Hall on 21 October 2024.
Credit: Video courtesy of Ian Page and the Mozartists
James Atkinson sings Stravinsky Pulcinella at The Bridgewater Hall, conducted by Nil Venditti
Credit: Courtesy of BBC Radio 3 and BBC philharmonic
James Atkinson sings Belshazzar's Feast (If I Forget Thee) with Tokyo Symphony Orchestra
James Atkinson makes his debut with Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and Jonathan Nott singing Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast at MUZA Kawasaki (21 and 22 May 2022). Credit: Tokyo Symphony Orchestra
James Atkinson sings Belshazzar’s Feast – Babylon
James Atkinson makes his debut with Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and Jonathan Nott singing Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast at MUZA Kawasaki (21 and 22 May 2022). Credit: Tokyo Symphony Orchestra
James Atkinson & Anna Tilbrook | Johanna Müller-Hermann: Herbst
British baritone James Atkinson sings Johanna Müller-Hermann’s song ‘Herbst’ accompanied by Anna Tilbrook. This performance was recorded by TallWall media at Trinity College, Oxford, as part of the Oxford Lieder Spring Song Festival 2022. It featured as part of the Forgotten Voices lecture-recital series, curated by Kitty Whately and Natasha Loges, and produced in collaboration with SWAP’ra (Supporting Women and Parents in Opera). Credit: Oxford Song
James Atkinson – O Tod (Brahms) Oxford Lieder Festival 2020
James Atkinson sings O Tod (Brahms) at the Oxford Lieder Festival 2020. Credit: Oxford Song / TallWall Media
Audio
- James Atkinson sings Le Secret from Faure's 3 Melodies Op.23, accompanied by Hamish BrownCredit: BBC Radio 3, BBC NGA scheme Recorded: 11 March 2025
- James Atkinson sings Bizet's Votre Toast from Carmen | BBC Philharmonic | Victoria Hall, HanleyCredit: BBC Radio 3 Recorded: 06 June 2025
Selected Repertoire
Bernstein
Trouble in Tahiti (Sam)
Debussy
Pelleas et Melisande (Golaud)
Donizetti
L'elisir d'amore (Belcore)
Haydn
Il mondo della luna (Buonafede)
Maxwell Davies
The Lighthouse (Blazes)
Mozart
Le nozze di Figaro (Figaro, Count Almaviva) • 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
Wigmore Hall Debut | BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Live | Iain Burnside
Wigmore Hall, LondonJan 2025Rising 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.
- The Times
- 06 January 2025
In this repertoire he seems an natural song-recital animal. He used his rich, dark hued voice in a manner that really drew us in, not over-demonstrative yet rich in subtlety.
- Planet Hugill
- 07 January 2025
Boston: Brahms Requiem | Handel & Haydn Society
Symphony Hall, BostonApr 2024Baritone 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 CentreFeb 2024James Atkinson’s strong baritone Guglielmo emerges with a touch more strength of character…
- Nicholas Kenyon, The Telegraph
- 25 February 2024
Bernard Labadie | Orchestre symphonique de Montréal | Haydn | Creation
Maison Symphonique MontrealApr 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).
- Backtrack
- 10 April 2023
Masetto | Don Giovanni | Welsh National Opera
Wales Millennium Centre, CardiffFeb 2022The 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.
- Midlands Music Review
- 27 February 2022
James Atkinson imposes a lot in the role and delivers, tall in nature and voice.
- Buzz
- 01 March 2022
Homelands
CDOct 2023Baritone 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…
- Opera Today
- 10 January 2024
