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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
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Nil Venditti conducting Stravinsky's Pulcinella with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra live on BBC Radio 3.
Apr 2025 - Apr 2025
Salle Franz Liszt, Geneva
Mahler Des Knaben Wunderhorn Marc Bourdeau (piano)
May 2025 - Jun 2025
Luxor Theater, Rotterdam
Brahms Requiem with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Giuseppe Mengoli conducting.
Jun 2025
Victoria Hall, Stoke-on-Trent
BBC Philharmonic: A Night at the Opera conducted by Jonathan Bloxham

Video

Audio

  • James Atkinson sings Le Secret from Faure's 3 Melodies Op.23, accompanied by Hamish Brown
    Credit: BBC Radio 3, BBC NGA scheme Recorded: 11 March 2025

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

Le nozze di 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, 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.

    • 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.

  • 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…

Discography

Askonas Holt artists and touring partners to appear at the 2024 BBC Proms

/25 April 2024

The BBC Proms today announced the programme for this summer’s festival, with 29 Askonas Holt artists and touring partners making appearances.

The Askonas Holt Tours and Projects team this year continues a tradition of bringing world-renowned orchestras to the Royal Albert Hall. Daniel Barenboim returns to the UK for the first time since 2019, conducting the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra which he founded 25 years ago with Palestinian-American academic Edward Said.

Continuing a partnership that spans decades, the team is proud to once again be bringing the Berliner Philharmoniker and Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko to London for two performances at the Royal Albert Hall, including Bruckner’s Symphony No.5 and Schumann’s Piano Concerto with soloist Víkingur Ólafsson. Also celebrating Bruckner’s anniversary year is Sir Simon Rattle and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, in their first Prom together since Sir Simon took up his position as Chief Conductor. Alongside the composer’s Symphony No.4, they present the UK premiere of Thomas Adès’s Aquifer followed by a second concert featuring Mahler’s Symphony No.6, both of which are on the programme for their current tour of the US.

Following extensive tours in the US and Europe in collaboration with Askonas Holt, recent signing Jakub Józef Orliński and il Pomo d’Oro present a performance of their critically acclaimed 2023 release Beyond. The Late-Night Prom on 23 July marks the countertenor’s Proms debut, and the Baroque ensemble's first appearance at Royal Albert Hall.

Edward Gardner and the London Philharmonic join forces with Benjamin Grosvenor for Busoni’s Piano Concerto and Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, while Kirill Karabits and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra perform Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 and Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto with Evelyn Glennie.

Emmanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma return with frequent collaborator Leonidas Kavakos for a chamber prom of works by Beethoven. Denis Kozhukhin makes his third visit, teaming up with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for Ravel’s Piano Concerto, and Tobias Feldmann makes his Proms debut with Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic.

Also making his Proms debut is guitarist Plínio Fernandes, who, together with Braimah and Sheku Kanneh-Mason, present a family-friendly concert of folk songs, dances, prayers and incantations with the Fantasia Orchestra. They return the next day for a Relaxed Prom.

Cynthia Millar returns with the BBC Philharmonic for Messiaen’s Turangalila, followed the next evening by Lawrence Power who performs the BBC co-commissioned viola concerto I cannot love without trembling by Cassandra Miller. Daniel Pioro heads to the Glasshouse for an afternoon exploration into Elizabethan music and folklore.

Vocal enthusiasts will be treated to Grammy-award winning soprano Angel Blue’s Proms debut when she joins the massed forces of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Chorus and Singers for the Last Night of the Proms. Other choral favourites include Verdi’s Requiem with Karen Cargill and Soloman Howard, Mozart’s arrangement of Handel’s Messiah with Benjamin Hulett and Ashley Riches alongside six choirs and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields under John Butt.

For Holst’s 150th-anniversary year, Jess Dandy joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus performing his masterpiece The Cloud Messenger. New signing Alice Coote sings Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, which featured on her critically-acclaimed recording of Mahler song cycles with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. Baritone James Atkinson performs Fauré’s song-cycle La bonne chanson in a chamber prom that pays homage to fin de siècle Paris at Ulster Hall in Belfast. In another evening celebrating works by French composers, Laurence Kilsby performs Lili Boulanger’s Vieille prière bouddhique with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Finally, opera fans can catch Garsington Opera’s Proms debut with a semi-staged production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, starring Iestyn Davies as Oberon, Lucy Crowe as Tytania and Christine Rice as Hippolyta alongside the Philharmonia Orchestra.

The Proms run from 19 July to 14 September, with booking opening 18 May. All performances will be live on BBC Radio 3 and streamed on BBC Sounds, with a selection of Proms on TV and iPlayer.

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