Neal Davies studied at King's College, London, and the Royal Academy of Music, and won the Lieder Prize at the 1991 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. He has appeared with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra under Mariss Jansons, BBC Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Boulez, Cleveland and Philharmonia orchestras under Christoph von Dohnányi, Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Frans Brüggen, English Concert with Harry Bicket, Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh, Hallé Orchestra with Sir Mark Elder, Concerto Koeln under Ivor Bolton, Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Adam Fischer, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra with Edward Gardner, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin with David Zinman, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra with Sir Andrew Davis, and the London Symphony and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras under Daniel Harding. He has been a regular guest of the Edinburgh Festival and BBC Proms.

This season Neal joins the Royal Northern Sinfonia for Mozart’s Requiem with Stephen Layton. He will also make a tour of Messiah with Justin Doyle and RIAS Kammerchor with performances in Eindhoven, Arnhem, Ferrara, Turin and Chiasso. He will also tour with the Freiburger Barockorchester in Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, and Freiburg singing in Orfeo with René Jacobs. He will return to Chicago for concerts of Bach’s St John Passion with Jane Glover and Music of the Baroque.

Opera for 22/23 included performances of Jephtha (Zebul) with Music of the Baroque and Jane Glover, Yeoman of the Guard (Sergeant)for the English National Opera, and Papageno in the Welsh National Opera’s production of The Magic Flute. On the concert stage, Neal sang Messiah with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington and Fabio Biondi, Vaughan William’s Dona nobis pacem with MDR Radio Orchestra and Howard Arman in the Leipzig Gewandhaus, join the Bergen Philharmonic and Mark Elder for Christ on the Mount of Olives and sing Handel’s Ode For The Birthday Of Queen Anne with Bernard Labadie and Les Violons du Roy.

Other recent highlights have included a return to English National Opera as Don Alfonso Cosi fan tutte and a recording of Utopia Ltd for Scottish Opera. On the concert platform Neal sang Ariodate/Serse with the English Concert in Carnegie Hall New York, London, and Pamplona; The Creation with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Mozart Requiem in Tokyo cond. Jonathan Nott and The Messiah with Les Violons du Roy cond. Jonathan Cohen; Christmas Oratorio with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Stephen Layton and a European concert tour of Israel in Egypt with the Freiburger Barockorchester cond. René Jacobs.

Recent concert appearances include Peter Grimes with the Bergen Philharmonic, Valens Theodora with Arcangelo at the Wiener Konzerthaus, The Seasons with the Moscow State Philharmonic Society cond. Maxim Emelyanychev, a tour of Beethoven 9 with the Hallé Orchestra and Sir Mark Elder, the Edinburgh Festival with Edward Gardner (Creation) and BBC Proms (Vaughan Williams’ Dona nobis pacem), with David Afkham and the Spanish National Orchestra, and with Maxime Pascal conducting the Hallé Orchestra, Les violons du Roy and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (Jonathan Cohen), the Bach Collegium Japan (Masaaki Suzuki), Music of the Baroque (Jane Glover) and the Philadelphia Orchestra (Bernard Labadie).

Operatic appearances have included: King Arthur for the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin; Major General Stanley The Pirates of Penzance and Ko-Ko The Mikado for the Lyric Opera of Chicago; Giulio Cesare, Figaro Le nozze di Figaro and Alaska Wolf Joe The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; L’Allegro, Zebul Jephtha, Publio La clemenza di Tito, Ariodates Xerxes, Kolenaty The Makropoulos Case and a new commission by Ryan Wigglesworth, A Winter’s Tale, for English National Opera; Radamisto for Opera de Marseille; Leporello Don Giovanni for Scottish Opera and Opera de Montreal; Curlew River for the Edinburgh Festival; Guglielmo and Don Alfonso Cosi fan tutte, Papageno Die Zauberflöte, Leporello, Dulcamara L’elisir d’amore, Zebul and Sharpless Madame Butterfly for the Welsh National Opera; Agrippina for the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin. With William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, Neal has sung in Theodora (Paris and Salzburg) and in the Aix-en-Provence Festival production of Charpentier’s David et Jonathas (Aix, Edinburgh and New York), which is available on DVD. He sang Traveler in the Barbican Centre production of Curlew River, which toured to New York’s Lincoln Center, and Alaska Wolf Joe for the Opera di Roma.

Photo credit: Gerard Collett