Thomas Hobbs

Highlights of his 2019/20 season include several performances of Bach Cantatas with laBarocca in Milan, Le Banquet Céleste, Gli Angeli Geneva, performances of Handel’s Messiah with Early Music Vancouver, Sinfonietta Riga, Tafelmusik Toronto, RIAS Kammerchor and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Evangelist in St Matthew Passion with Dutch Bach Society and Leonardo García Alarcón, Vivaldi’s Venetian Vespers with Kammerchor Stuttgart and several projects with Collegium Vocale Ghent under the baton of Philippe Herreweghe and Gli Angeli Geneve under Stephan McLeod.

His 2018/19 season included Monteverdi Vespers with RIAS Kammerchor in Japan, Polish Baroque music by G.G. Gorczyck with Wrocław Baroque Ensemble, Bach’s St John Passion with Le Banquet Celeste, as well as numerous concerts with Collegium Vocale Gent and Gli Angeli Geneva.

Recent concert performances include Bach B minor mass with Collegium Vocale Gent and Herreweghe in a European concert tour and at the Salzburg Festival, Haydn Creation with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and the CBSO, Schumann Requiem with Richard Egarr and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Evangelist in Bach St Matthew Passion on tour with the Netherlands Bach Society, and Messiah with the Academy of Ancient Music at the Barbican. He also sang Bach cantatas with Les Violons du Roy, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and travelled to Australia to sing Bach Christmas Oratorio with the Choir of London and Australian Chamber Orchestra. Hobbs performed Bach, Britten and Haydn with the Israel Camerata, sang Handel Alexander’s Feast with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, as well as Bach programmes with Gli Angeli Geneve, La Chapelle Harmonique, Dunedin Consort at Wigmore Hall, and with the Milan Symphony Orchestra. 
 

Hobbs’s operatic roles include a critically acclaimed Telemachus The Return of Ulysses in a new production for English National Opera conducted by Jonathan Cohen, Apollo and Shepherd in Monteverdi’s Orfeo in semi-staged performances with Richard Egarr and the AAM, the title role in Albert Herring and Ferrando Così fan tutte. A keen recitalist, highlights include Brett Dean Winter Songs at the Cheltenham Festival, Vaughan Williams On Wenlock Edge with the Edinburgh Quartet, Schubert Die Schöne Müllerin and Schumann Liederkreis Op.39, a recital of Mozart songs at London’s Kings Place, a recital of English song and German lieder for the Festival Accademia delle Crete Senesi in Tuscany, Wolf songs at the Oxford Lieder Festival and a recital at the Ryedale Festival with Christopher Glynn.

Hobbs’ ever-expanding discography includes Bach B minor Mass with both CVG and Dunedin Consort, Bach Motets, Leipzig cantatas and Christmas Oratorio with CVG, Christmas Oratorio with Dunedin Consort, Handel Acis et Galatea and Esther with Dunedin Consort and Beethoven Mass in C with Stuttgart Kammerchor. His recordings of Handel Chandos Anthems with Stephen Layton and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Mozart Requiem with John Butt and the Dunedin Consort have been universally praised, with the latter receiving the 2014 Gramophone Award for best Choral recording. Most recently he released a CD with Herreweghe/Collegium Vocale Gent - Bach, ‘Sonn und Child’ on the PHI label.

Born in Exeter, Thomas Hobbs studied at the Royal College of Music under the tutelage of Neil Mackie, where he was awarded the RCM Peter Pears and Mason scholarships, and at the Royal Academy of Music under Ryland Davies, where he held a Kohn Bach Scholarship in addition to a full entrance scholarship. He was also awarded a Susan Chilcott Scholarship, has been made a Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist and was an Associate Artist of the Classical Opera Company. He was also a member of the prestigious Académie at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, where he performed in concert with Louis Langrée and the Camerata Salzburg.

2018-19 season / 593 words. Not to be altered without permission.