Soloists
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Paul Agnew |
Tenor Paul Agnew was born in Glasgow and read music as a choral scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford. As an outstanding interpreter of baroque and classical repertoire, he works regularly in both concert and opera with the world’s leading early music groups and conductors including William Christie, Marc Minkowski, Ton Koopman, John Eliot Gardiner, Phillippe Herreweghe and Emmanuelle Haïm. He was last heard with Music of the Baroque in the St. John Passion under the baton of Nicholas Kraemer.
Highly regarded as an interpreter of French Baroque haute-contre roles, Mr. Agnew made his Paris opera début singing the title role in Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie at Palais Garnier with Les Arts Florissants. He has returned to Opéra National de Paris to give performances of Rameau's Platée, Les boreades and Les Indes galantes, and has also appeared at Festival d’Art Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, Opéra de Lyon and Zurich Opera.
In continuous demand on the international concert stage, Mr. Agnew was Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music Artist in Residence in 2004 and is a regular performer at the Edinburgh Festival. Other concert performances have included Berlioz’s L'enfance du Christ with the orchestra of Komische Oper Berlin at Konzerthaus Berlin, Mozart’s Davidde Penitente at Konzerthaus Vienna and with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonica Orchestra, Alceste in Vara’s Zaterdag Matinee series at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Handel’s La Resurrezione with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Radio Sinfonie Orchester Frankfurt.
Recent highlights include performances of Idomeneo with Les Arts Florissants, Theodora with Le Concert d'Astrée and Haydn's Nelson Mass with Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI under the baton of Jeffrey Tate.
Mr. Agnew’s discography includes Beethoven Lieder for Naïve, L’enfance du Christ with La Chapelle Royale for Harmonia Mundi, and Sally Beamish’s In Dreaming for Virgin Classics. He has recorded Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Bach cantatas with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, the Monteverdi Vespers, Charpentier’s La Descente Orphée aux Enfers and Rameau’s grands motets with Les Arts Florissants for Erato. On DVD his performances in Les boreades and Les Indes galantes are both released by Opus Arte, and his acclaimed performance as Platée is released on TDK.