Ian Charles Bostridge CBE (born 25 December 1964) is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera and lieder singer.

Early life and education

Bostridge was born in London, the son of Leslie Bostridge and Lillian (née Clark). His father was a chartered surveyor.

He was a Queen's Scholar at Westminster School. He attended St John's College, Oxford, where he secured a First in Modern History and St John's College, Cambridge, where he received an M.Phil. degree in the History and Philosophy of Science. He was awarded his D.Phil. degree in history from Oxford in 1990, on the significance of witchcraft in English public life from 1650 to 1750, supervised by Sir Keith Thomas. He worked in television current affairs and documentaries for two years in London before becoming a British Academy post-doctoral fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, teaching political theory and eighteenth-century British history. His book Witchcraft and Its Transformations, c. 1650–1750 was published as an Oxford Historical Monograph in 1997. This book, "the most sophisticated and original of all recent histories of early modern demonology", according to Professor Stuart Clark, has been influential in the study of the pre-Enlightenment. It "achiev[es] that rarest of feats in the scholarly world: taking a well-worn subject and ensuring that it will never be looked at in quite the same way again" (Noel Malcolm, TLS).

Musical career

Debuts

Bostridge began singing professionally at age 27. he has been the subject of a South Bank Show profile documentary on ITV and presented the BBC 4 film The Diary of One Who Disappeared about Czech composer Leoš Janáček. He has written for The New York Review of Books, The New York Times,The Guardian, The Times, Financial Times,The Times Literary Supplement, Opernwelt, Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, Opera Now and The Independent.

Later engagements included recitals in Paris, Stockholm, Lisbon, Brussels, Amsterdam and the Vienna Konzerthaus. In North America he appeared in recitals in New York City at the Frick Collection in 1998 and Alice Tully Hall in 1999 and made his Carnegie Hall debut under Sir Neville Marriner. Also in 1998, he sang Vasek in a new production of The Bartered Bride under Bernard Haitink for the Royal Opera and made his debut at the Munich Festival as Nerone (L'incoronazione di Poppea) and in recital (Winterreise at the Cuvilliés Theatre). In 1999, he made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic under Sir Roger Norrington. He works regularly with the pianists Julius Drake, Graham Johnson, Mitsuko Uchida, composer Thomas Adès and Covent Garden music director Antonio Pappano. Other partners at the piano have included Leif Ove Andsnes, Håvard Gimse, Saskia Giorgini, Igor Levit, and Lars Vogt.

Since 2000

In the summer of 2000 Bostridge gave the fifth annual Edinburgh University Festival Lecture entitled "Music and Magic".

In 2004, Bostridge was made CBE for his services to music. He is an Hon RAM, honorary fellow of Corpus Christi College, St John's College, and Wolfson College Oxford, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of St Andrews in 2003. He was Humanitas Professor of Classical Music and Education at the University of Oxford, 2014–15 (part of the Humanitas Programme). In 2020/21 he was a visiting professor at Munich's Hochschule for Music and Theatre. From 2022 on he is giving courses on Schubert Lieder at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna.

He gave the inaugural Nicholas Breakspear lecture, "Classical Attitudes: Latin and music through the ages" at the University of Trondheim in 2015; and the annual BIRTHA lecture, "Humanity in Song: Schubert's Winter Journey" at the University of Bristol in the same year. He delivered the Lincoln Kirstein Lecture, "Song and Dance", at NYU in 2016. He gave the Berlin Family Lectures at the University of Chicago in April 2021.

Bostridge had his own year-long Perspectives series at Carnegie Hall in 2005/6, and a twelve-month residency at the Barbican in 2008, "Homeward Bound". He has had a Carte Blanche season at the Concertgebouw and further artistic residencies in Luxembourg, Hamburg, the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg and the Wigmore Hall.

On 11 November 2009 Bostridge sang Agnus Dei from Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, at the Armistice Day service in Westminster Abbey. This uses the words of war poet Wilfred Owen's "At a Calvary near the Ancre". The service marked the loss of the WWI generation, whose last members died earlier the same year. Bostridge performed Kurt Weill's anti-war Four Walt Whitman Songs in 2014. He also has a long history with directing and performing The Threepenny Opera.

In 2013, he performed as part of the Barbican Britten centenary festival in London, and released a new recording of the composer's War Requiem.

Bibliography

Books

  • Song and Self: A Singer's Reflections on Music and Performance. Chicago University Press/Faber and Faber 2023

Book reviews

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Critical studies and reviews of Bostridge's work

  • Reviews Witchcraft and its transformations, c.1650–1750.

Select discography

  • Twilight Schumann Songs with Saskia Giorgini (Pentatone 2025)
  • Mustonen, Symphony no 3, Taivaanvalot, Turku Philharmonic, Olli Mustonen (Ondine 2024)
  • The Folly of Desire with Brad Mehldau (Pentatone 2023)
  • Schubert: Schwanengesang with Lars Vogt (Pentatone 2022)
  • Tormento d'Amore with Antonio Florio and Cappella Neapolitana (Warner 2022)
  • Respighi, Songs with Saskia Giorgini (Pentatone 2021)
  • Schubert, Die schöne Müllerin with Saskia Giorgini (Pentatone 2020)
  • Beethoven: Songs and Folksongs with Antonio Pappano (Warner Classics 2020)
  • Schubert, Winterreise with Thomas Adès (Pentatone 2019)
  • Handel, Ode for St Cecilia's Day with Dunedin Consort (Linn 2019)
  • Berlioz, "Les Nuits d'Eté"; Ravel, "Shéhérazade"; Debussy/Adams, "Le Livre de Baudelaire", conducted by Ludovic Morlot with Seattle Symphony, (Seattle Symphony Media, 2019)
  • Requiem (Butterworth, Stephan, Mahler, Weill) with Antonio Pappano (Warner Classics 2018)
  • Schubert Songs 4 with Julius Drake (Wigmore Live 2018)
  • Schubert Songs 3 with Julius Drake (Wigmore Live 2017)
  • Songs from Our Ancestors with Xuefei Yang (Globe Music, 2016)
  • Shakespeare Songs with Antonio Pappano (Warner Classics, 2016)
  • Brahms: the complete songs, volume 6 with Graham Johnson (Hyperion, 2015)
  • Schubert Songs 2 with Julius Drake (Wigmore Live, 2015)
  • Schubert Songs 1 with Julius Drake (Wigmore Live, 2014)
  • Bach: St John Passion with Stephen Layton, Polyphony and the OAE (Hyperion, 2013)
  • Britten: War Requiem" with Antonio Pappano, Anna Netrebko, Thomas Hampson, Accademia di Santa Cecilia (Warner Classics, 2013)
  • Britten: The Rape of Lucretia with Oliver Knussen (EMI Classics, 2013)
  • Britten Songs with Antonio Pappano and Xuefei Yang (EMI Classics, 2013)
  • Three Baroque Tenors Arias for Beard, Borosini and Fabri. Bernard Labadie (EMI Classics 2010)
  • Adès: The Tempest with Thomas Adès (EMI Classics, 2009)
  • Schubert: Schwanengesang with Antonio Pappano (EMI Classics, 2009)
  • Schubert: The Wanderer: Lieder and Fragments with Leif Ove Andsnes (EMI Classics, 2008)
  • Great Handel with Harry Bicket (EMI Classics, 2007)
  • Schubert: Lieder and Sonata with Leif Ove Andsnes (EMI Classics, 2007)
  • Wolf: Lieder with Antonio Pappano (EMI Classics, 2006)
  • Britten: Les Illuminations, Serenade, Nocturne with Simon Rattle (EMI Classics, 2005)
  • Schubert: 25 Lieder with Julius Drake (EMI Classics, 2005)
  • Wagner: Tristan und Isolde with Antonio Pappano (EMI Classics, 2005)
  • Schubert: die Schöne Müllerin with Mitsuko Uchida (EMI Classics, 2005)
  • Schubert: Lieder and Sonata No.21 with Leif Ove Andsnes (EMI Classics, 2005)
  • Schubert: Winterreise with Leif Ove Andsnes (EMI Classics, 2004)
  • Monteverdi: Orfeo with Emmanuelle Haïm (Virgin Classics, 2004)
  • Purcell: Dido and Aeneas with Emmanuelle Haïm (Virgin Classics, 2003)
  • Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge with Bernard Haitink (EMI Classics, 2003)
  • Schubert: Lieder and Sonata D850 with Leif Ove Andsnes (EMI Classics, 2003)
  • Mozart: Idomeneo with Charles Mackerras (EMI Classics, 2002)
  • Britten: Canticles & Folksongs with Julius Drake (Virgin Classics, 2002)
  • Britten: Turn of the Screw with Daniel Harding (Virgin Classics, 2002)
  • The Songs of Robert Schumann, Vol.7 with Dorothea Röschmann and Graham Johnson (Hyperion, 2002)
  • The Noël Coward Songbook with Jeffrey Tate (EMI Classics, 2002)
  • Schubert: Lieder volume II with Julius Drake (EMI Classics, 2001)
  • Henze: Songs with Julius Drake (EMI Classics, 2001)
  • Bach: Cantatas and Arias with Fabio Biondi (Virgin Classics, 2000)
  • Handel: L'allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato with John Nelson (Virgin Classics, 2000)
  • The English Songbook with Julius Drake (EMI Classics, 1999)
  • Stravinsky: The Rake's Progress with John Eliot Gardiner (Deutsche Grammophon, 1999)
  • Bach: St Matthew Passion (Evangelist) with Philippe Herreweghe (Harmonia Mundi, 1999)
  • Schumann: Liederkreis & Dichterliebe etc. with Julius Drake (EMI Classics, 1998)
  • Schubert: Lieder volume I with Julius Drake (EMI Classics, 1998)
  • Britten: Our Hunting Fathers with Daniel Harding, Britten Sinfonia (Warner Classics, 1998)
  • Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin (Schubert Edition, Vol.25) with Graham Johnson and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Hyperion, 1996)
  • Britten: The Red Cockatoo & Other Songs with Graham Johnson (Hyperion, 1995)
  • Nyman: Noises, Sounds & Sweet Airs with Dominique Debart (Argo, 1995)
  • Vaughan Williams: Over Hill, Over Dale with Holst Singers and Michael George (Hyperion, 1995)

References

  • Witchcraft and Its Transformations, c.1650-c.1750 (Doctoral thesis, at amazon.com)
  • About Ian Bostridge
  • FT profile May 2011
  • Guardian profile September 2011
  • Warner Classics artist page
  • Interview with Ian Bostridge by Bruce Duffie, 12 October 2000
  • Lunch with the FT
  • Askonas Holt artist page
  • Singing Schubert (YouTube).
  • Interview on The Next Track podcast