Biography

James Gilchrist began his working life as a doctor, turning to a full-time career in music in 1996. Engagements for 2013-14 include Britten recitals in Spain and London; J.S. Bach’s Massin B minor in Dresden and Saarbrucken with Le Concert Lorrain; Britten’s Nocturnewith the NHK Symphony in Tokyo; performances of Handel’s Jephtha with The Sixteen; Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri and Haydn’s The Creation at the Leipzig Gewandhaus; and Mozart’s Requiemwith Orquesta de Barcelona. Mr. Gilchrist will also sing Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion at the Concertgebouw with the Academy of Ancient Music and with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, give a series of performances of Handel’s  L’Allegro with the Mark Morris Dance Group in Teatro Real Madrid, and return to Wigmore Hall to perform Schubert’s Schwanengesang and Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2005.

As a recitalist, Mr. Gilchrist enjoys partnerships with pianists Anna Tilbrook and Julius Drake and harpist Alison Nicholls.  Among his many recordings are Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, Schwanengesang, and Winterreise for Orchid; Finzi’s Intimations of Immortality for Naxos; the title role in Britten’s Albert Herring and Vaughan Williams’s A Poisoned Kiss for Chandos; and discs of Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge, and Kenneth Leighton’s Earth, Sweet Earth and Britten’s Winter Words for the Linn label.

(November 2013)