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The Welsh tenor, Alan J. Preston, was born into a musical family. Both his parents were principal members of the Cwmbrân Operatic Society, where Alan himself would perform as a child in productions including; ‘Oliver!’ and ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, so with this diet sprinkled with Gilbert & Sullivan, Léhar, Romberg and Rogers & Hammerstein, combined with a healthy dose of 50's and 60'ss pop songs and ballads (another passion passed on from his parent’s youth), it was inevitable that Alan would pursue a life in music. He was a member of the Gwent Youth Choir and National Youth Choir of Wales, where he was a regular soloist. In 1989, he won the Gwent Young Musician of the Year award, which included a bursary after gaining a place to study at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London (1989-1993), where he studied with renowned tenor Ian Kennedy. During his fist year he was awarded the Sir George Frederick Painter Prize, normally awarded to second or third year students.
After graduating from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Alan Preston soon began to receive many professional engagements with various companies including; Bath & Wessex Opera, Kent Opera, The London Voices and most notably The Royal Opera Company at Covent Garden as a Chorus member (October 1993-October 1995), where he sang with the likes of Plácido Domingo and Denyce Graves in Georges Bizet's Carmen, Renée Fleming in Simon Boccanegra and Sir Thomas Allen in Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. He was invited again to sing in Carmen with Denyce Graves in the title role, this time with a second of the Three Tenors, José Carreras singing the role of Don Jose in Raymond Gubbay’s O2 ‘in the round’ production at the Deutschlandhalle, Berlin. He appears on EMI's 40th anniversary Abbey Road recording of ‘Salad Days’ and recording of Jonathan Miller production of J.S. Bach's Matthäus-Passion BWV 244 where he was an original cast member at London's Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square and went on to tour with it to Lille, Dublin and Barcelona.
As a tenor, Alan Preston sees himself as a rare breed theses days, as what the Italians call operatically, ‘tenore di grazia’ or ‘leggero tenor’ (graceful and light tenor, respectively) in the same vein as John McCormack, Luigi Alva, Stuart Burrows, Alfredo Kraus and in a lighter vain, Harry Secombe, Kenneth McKellar and Joseph Locke. His versatility and virtuosity sees him enjoy singing a wide variety of music from opera, musical theatre and classical crossover. Along with his recitals and concert engagements, more recently he has been posting, the previously mentioned 50's and 60's songs and ballads and other repertoire on his YouTube channel Alan J. Preston-Tenor, why not log on, subscribe and enjoy as have the 65K plus viewers already! He married Charlotte Preston in 1993 and currently lives in Cwmbrân, South Wales. |
