British baritone James Newby is the winner of the 2016 Kathleen Ferrier Award.

That same year he was the recipient of the Wigmore Hall/Independent Opera Voice Fellowship, and in 2015 was awarded the Richard Tauber Prize (for best interpretation of a Schubert Lied) and overall Third Prize at the Wigmore Hall/Kohn International Song Competition. In 2017 he was awarded the Trinity Gold Medal by the board of Trinity Laban Conservatoire.

After initial studies at Trinity Laban, under Alison Wells, he joined Glyndebourne Festival Chorus in the summer of 2016 and continues his studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Robert Dean.

In the 2016/17 season James sang the role of Mercurio in La Calisto with La Nuova Musica and David Bates, and made his BBC Proms debut in 2016 singing in Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music conducted by Sakari Oramo. James was a 2017 Jerwood Young Artist at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and appeared in La Traviata, Hamlet, La Clemenza di Tito and the role of the notary in Don Pasquale during the 2017 Festival, for which he won the prestigious John Christie Award.

James was awarded the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Rising Stars prize for the 2017-2018 season, and will perform regularly with the orchestra as soloist in programmes including the role of Christus in the world premiere of Sally Beamish’s The Judas Passion; and various Bach Cantatas as part of the OAE’s ‘Bach, the Universe and Everything’ series at Kings Place, London.

His operatic roles include the title roles in Eugene Onegin (Brent Opera) and Don Giovanni (Moon Little Opera), Aeneas  (TDido and Aeneasrinity Laban Chamber Choir), Gobrias Belshazzar and Apollo Orpheus in the Underworld (Trinity Laban Opera), Papageno Die Zauberflöte (Suffolk Opera) and Guglielmo Così Fan Tutte (Everybody’s Theatre Company).

James enjoys a busy schedule as a recitalist; recent and future highlights include appearances at Leeds Lieder Festival with Joseph Middleton, Oxford Lieder Festival with Eugene Asti and a solo recital at the Wigmore Hall. He also sang in the Perth International Arts Festival, Australia, including a performance of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin, and performed Schumann’s Dichterliebe in the Trinity Laban Schumann and Poulenc Project led by Eugene Asti.

Other future highlights include Count Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro for Nevill Holt Opera, a staged Bach St John Passion with the Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, directed by Calixto Bieito, Mozart’s C Minor Mass with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and performances with the Gabrieli Consort, Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, and for the London Handel and Newbury Festivals