Charles Daniels

tenor

British tenor Charles Daniels is a well-known interpreter of Baroque music, but his narrative gifts have been praised for music from Machault to the contemporary. Born in Salisbury, he was a chorister and Choral Scholar at King's College Cambridge, then studied under Edward Brooks at the Royal College of Music.

His extensive discography includes Monteverdi's L'Orfeo with Andrew Parrott, Bach's Matthäus-Passion with the Bach-Stiftung, Handel's Messiah, Schütz' Weihnachtshistorie and Monteverdi's Vespers with the Gabrieli Consort, Wojciech Kilar's Missa Pro Pace with the Warsaw Philharmonic, The Beggar's Opera, much Purcell and Bach, and more intimate discs such as Senfl Tenorlied with Fretwork, Heracleitus with the Bridge Quartet, and Lambert airs with Fred Jacobs.

His concert appearances span the intimate and the grand, from a BBC Radio 3 recital with lutenist Elizabeth Kenny and touring the domestic music of J.S. Bach with the Nederlandse Bach Verenging, to BBC Promenade concerts, Luigi Nono's Canti di Vita e Amore (Edinburgh Festival), Handel's Messiah in Vienna with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Britten's War Requiem (Canterbury, Salisbury) and Elgar's Dream of Gerontius (Wroclaw, Cardiff, Warsaw).

More recent projects include concerts and recording of Purcell's Fairy Queen for the Gabrieli Consort in Paul McCreesh's new edition, Lawes songs with Les Voix Humaines in Utrecht, a festive Schütz programme with the Toronto Consort; Handel Chandos Anthems in their original setting of the Canons Estate church, ongoing participation in the Bach-Stiftung's complete Bach series, the Academy of Ancient Music's radical look at Purcell’s King Arthur  and quatercentenary Sweelinck celebrations in the Netherlands and the Baltic States. Upcoming projects include a one voice per part St Matthew Passion recording for Adrian Butterfield, a Japanese tour with Les Voix Humaines and the title role in Monteverdi's Orfeo for Peter Holman.

Charles' completion of Purcell's Ode Arise my Muse was performed in Montreal in 2009 and his reconstructions of Gesualdo's Sacrae Cantiones à6 have been performed in Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw and festivals in Besançon and Tallinn. He much enjoys his collaborations with Canadian musicians and is looking forward to returning to the Toronto Bach Festival. He is married with two daughters and an avid cyclist.