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The English counter-tenor, conductor and music educator, Charles (Michael) Brett, was educated at Winchester College and King’s College and studied singing with Julian Smith and John Whitworth.
Charles Brett was a well-known soloist who made his debut in 1965 in London. He went on to work with the greatest specialists in Early and Baroque music and performed at top European Festivals, including Barcelona, San Sebastian, Cuenca, Wroclaw, Prague, Aix-en-Provence, Sable-sur-Sarthe, Lourdes, Saintes, Innsbruck, and Flanders. His operatic repertoire included Oberon in Benjamin Britten's Midsummer Night’s Dream, Athamas in George Frideric Handel's Semele, and Publio in Gluck’s La Clemenza di Tito.
Charles Brett formed, with Paul Esswood and James Bowman, the Big Three of the voice in the immediate post-Deller generation. A King's College, Cambridge choral scholar with a voice that's not very powerful, nor very pretty, but utterly secure and reliable. Recommends a dry sherry before concerts "to loosen the vocal cords". In 1983 he co-founded the Amaryllis Consort and was its director since then. The ensemble debuted in London and performed in France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Portugal.
Charles Brett was the alto soloist on the famous Roy Goodman recording of the Allegri Miserere; other recordings include the J.S. Bach's Magnificat (BWV 243) with John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir, to which he contributes a touching Esurientes and moving Et misericordia eius. His recordings include also Purcell’s Fairy Queen (under Benjamin Britten) and birthday odes, J.S. Bach’s B minor Mass (BWV 232) and cantatas under Philippe Herreeweghe, and several George Frideric Handel oratorios. He made several recordings with the choir of St John’s College as well as operatic albums of such works as H. Purcell's The Fairy Queen and G.F. Handel's The Messiah, among others.
Charles was a revered professor who held several teaching posts, including Assistant Music Master at Eton College, Director of Music at Malvern College, and at Westminster School. While at Malvern, he also conducted the Malvern Musical Society. He eventually turned to freelancing and became a Professor at the Royal Academy of Music from 1988 to 2003 and taught singing at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He went on to teach master-classes around teh world in Mexico, Guatemala, Germany, Belgium, Canada, and Spain. He died on June 24, 2025, peacefully at home, aged 83. |
