Ruby Hughes

The soprano Ruby Hughes grew up in the artist colony Digswell House in Country Hertfordshire in southern England, the daughter of the celebrated ceramicist Elizabeth Fritsch. She initially studied concert and lieder singing at the Munich Academy of Music before continuing her training with Lillian Watson at the Royal College of Music, where she graduated in 2009. Hughes was given the Susan Chilcott Award from the Royal Philharmonic Society; in 2011 she was accepted into the BBC New Generation Artist Program, and in 2014 she won the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. She made her stage debut in 2009 singing Roggerio in Rossini’s Tancredi under the direction of René Jacobs at the Theater an der Wien; Jacobs then engaged her for performances at the London Handel Festival and as Euridice in Monteverdi's L’Orfeo at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. In 2013 Hughes performed under Hervé Niquet in Purcell’s Indian Queen at the Schwetzingen Festival, and in May 2015 she sang Iris in Handel’s Semele under Ivor Bolton in Amsterdam, Ghent, Cologne, and Halle. The focus of her work lies in the concert repertoire, which she has performed with such ensembles as the Academy of Early Music Berlin, Les Arts Florissants, Le Concert Spirituel, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Concerto Köln, and various BBC ensembles. In 2014 she sang in Duruflé’s Requiem at the BBC Proms and also performed at the Festival Música Antigua in Madrid (under Pablo Heras-Casado) and at the Potsdam-Sanssouci Music Festival and the Göttingen Handel Festival. In January 2015 Hughes made her American debut with a lieder recital accompanied by Julius Drake at the Frick Collection in New York; her first CD of lieder, titled Nocturnal Variations, is soon to be released.

June 2015