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The English bass-baritone, Christopher (Chris) Webb, was a choral scholar at the Clare College of University of Cambridge, where he sang in the the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge and the University Chamber Choir and appeared as a soloist with baroque music specialist Sir Roger Norrington on BBC Radio 3 with the Academy of Ancient Music. He learns singing with Alexander Ashworth.
Christopher Webb enjoys a varied career as a soloist and ensemble singer. He is now a lay clerk at Southwark Cathedral and sings with renowned choirs including: the Monteverdi Choir (Director: John Eliot Gardiner), Ensemble Pygmalion (Director: Raphaël Pichon), Dunedin Consort (Director: John Butt), Polyphony (Director: Stephen Layton), La Nuova Musica (Director: David Bates), Philharmonia Voices and The Marian Consort (Director: Rory McCleery) amongst others, as well as with Farm Street Singers, Blossom Street and the a cappella group Over the Bridge. He has also worked extensively with the Zürcher Sing-Akademie (Director: Timothy Brown/Florian Helgath) in Zurich, Switzerland. He has been appointed recently as a member of the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral. He works with London Voices (Director: Terry Edwards) as a session singer for film and video game soundtracks.
Chris Webb joined U.K.'s Opera Lyrica on two tours of Britain in February and May 2015. The singers performed in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, as well as Blow's Venus and Adonis. Appropriately, Webb sang Adonis. The tours took him o London, Oxford, Hampshire and Wiltshire. He was a member of the English National Opera’s “Opera Works” young artists’ programme 2016-2017; his operatic roles to date include Dulcamara in Donizetti L’elisir d’amore, Colline in Puccini La bohème (Merry Opera Company), Sarastro in W.A. Mozart's The Magic Flute (Opera Anywhere), and Il Commendatore in W.A. Mozart's Don Giovanni (for the inaugural Waterperry Opera Festival). He has sung in productions at the summer Festival d’Aix-en-Provence with Pygmalion. He is in increasing demand as an oratorio soloist.
Chris Webb has appeared recently with the Monteverdi Choir as a step-out soloist on the “Sacrifices” European tour, including performances at the Salzburg Festival and Bachfest Leipzig. Other recent highlights include his Wigmore Hall debut with La Nuova Musica and solo appearances with The Marian Consort at the Brighton Festival, Stour Music and London Festival of Baroque Music. He was honoured to sing as a soloist at the recent televised service of thanksgiving and remembrance for Her Majesty The Queen at St Paul’s Cathedral.
Early music has played a big part in his burgeoning career, having sung Giove in Cavalli's La Calisto with the Hampstead Garden Opera, Melisso in George Frideric Handel's Alcina with Musica Poetica London and Sleep/Winter in Purcell's Fairy Queen with Ars Eloquentiae. |
