John Ieuan Jones, who hails Rhos-on-Sea in North Wales, is new to our site and was suggested by a colleague at the Royal Northern College of Music, where the Welsh barihunk is in his fourth year. Jones will be performing Count Almaviva from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro in operatic scenes presented at the Royal Northern College of Music Opera Theatre on January 26th. Admission is free and no tickets are required.
Jones won the James Martin Oncken Song Prize in 2015 and received 2nd place in the Musical Theatre category at the Urdd National Eisteddfod in 2015 and 2016.
John Ieuan Jones sings "If I were a rich man" in Welsh:
In 2015, he performed the role of Harry Easter in the Royal Northern College of Music's production of Kurt Weill's Street Scene. In 2016, he took on the role of Lord Ellington in his school's production of Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne. He also performs musical theater, having sung Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicoloured Dreamcoat and the role of Charles Clarke in Titanic: The Musical.
John Ieuan Jones
Additional upcoming performances include the bass soloist at Manchester Welsh Society's annual St.David's Day concert on February 24 and as the bass soloist in Gounod's St Cecilia Mass at Chester Cathedral on May 19th.
Jones is also a harpist, who has performed at the Welsh Rally Championship, Welsh Youth Excellence Awards and Conwy Business Awards.
Liverpool native Dan Shelvey was nominated by a reader on Facebook to be in our "Barihunks in Bed" calendar and we couldn't agree more. He is currently studying opera course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD) where he is supported by the GSMD, the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and Musicians Benevolent. Before attending the GSMD, Shelvey graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music with a first-class degree.
He is winner of the Richard Van Allan prize 2015, the Robin Kay 2013 Memorial Prize for Opera and the 2012 Frederick Cox Award for Singing, and was awarded second place in the Elizabeth Harwood Memorial Prize for Singers 2013.
Soprano Renée Fleming leads a masterclass with Daniel Shelvey:
A 2014 Glyndebourne Jerwood Young Artist, Dan has performed Flora’s Servant in Verdi's La traviata, covered Morales in Bizet's Carmen for Glyndebourne Festival Opera and will perform the role of the Marchese d’Obigny in their 2017 production of La traviata. Other roles include Junius in Britten's The Rape of Lucretia at the GSMD, Ulisse in Monteverdi's Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Sid in Britten's Albert Herring, Boris in Shostakovich's Paradise Moscow at the Royal Northern College of Music, and Aeneas in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas for Silk Opera.
Shelvey has sung as a soloist in many of the UK’s leading concert venues including the Royal Festival Hall, Colston Hall and the Bridgewater Hall. Recent solo concert highlights include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Hallé and at the Royal Festival Hall for the BBC, an Oxford Lieder Festival recital, and a recital for the Glyndebourne Jerwood Young Artist recital series at Brighton Pavilion.
British bass-barihunk Bradley Travis was introduced to us via Twitter. He's just wrapped up a run performing the roles of the German Father, a youth and the Priest in St. Mark's in Britten's Death in Venice at Garsington Opera.
Upcoming performances include Lesbus in Handel's Agrippina at Iford Opera from July 29-August 5, the Fireman in Voseček's Biedermann and the Arsonists at the Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler's Wells and Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni with English Touring Opera next Spring.
He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music where he was the Drapers’ de Turckheim Scholar, winner of the Alexander Young Award and a finalist in the Frederic Cox Award. He recently graduated from the Royal College of Music International Opera School where he won the Eric Joseph Shilling Award for Opera. He also received a Sir Gordon Palmer Scholarship supported by the South Square Trust Award.
He has performed Figaro in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro with Opera North, as well as a number of roles at the Royal College of Music International Opera School, including Don Iñigo Gomez in Ravel's L’heure espagnole, Lord Ellington Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne and Ottone in Monteverdi's L’incoronazione di Poppea. He recently completed a recording with Simon Lepper of Ancel Newton’s song cycle Doomed Youth.
Most recently he received the Garsington Opera's Helen Clarke Award in recognition of his contribution and musical skill during their 2014 season.
