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The English baritone, Henry Hawkesworth, was a chorister at Ampleforth Abbey for ten years, before taking up a choral scholarship at King's College, Cambridge. Over his tenure there he featured extensively as a soloist with the King's College Choir Cambridge on record and in concert, and was awarded the Harmer Prize for services to church music, also twice receiving the Bertram Faulkner Award for a lasting contribution to musical scholarship. He has participated in masterclasses with Andrew Kennedy, Sarah Connolly, Roderick Williams and Andreas Scholl, and studies with Russell Smythe. After graduating he sang as a lay clerk at New College, Oxford before moving to Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, where he works currently.
During study in Cambridge, Henry Hawkesworth undertook many operatic engagements, singing most notably Collatinus in Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, Sarastro in W.A. Mozart's The Magic Flute, Piangi in The Phantom of the Opera and Leporello in W.A. Mozart's Don Giovanni. His interpretation of the latter role was roundly praised by the university press, with the Cambridge Tab remarking "the star of the show was undoubtedly Hawkesworth's Leporello ... a brilliant performance".
In concert Henry Hawkesworth has performed as soloist in Igor Stravinsky's Mass, Dietrich Buxtehude's Jesu Membra Nostri, the Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Duruflé and W.A. Mozart Requiems, Copland's Old American Songs, J.S. Bach's St John Passion (BWV 245), Magnificat (BWV 243) and B minor Mass (BWV 232) and George Frideric Handel's Messiah and Ode on the Birthday of Queen Anne. Recently he had the pleasure of singing the bass solos in Purcell's Te Deum at the opening service of the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford Cathedral on its 300th anniversary. In March 2017, he was soloist with The Choirs of Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is a member of the vocal & instrumental ensemble Amici Voices. |
