Nicholas Clapton

Counter-tenor

Nicholas Clapton was born in Worcester and read Music at Magdalen College, Oxford. He made his professional debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1984, since when he has pursued a wide-ranging career in opera, oratorio and recital throughout Britain and Europe, in the Far East and in the USA. in Handel's Radamisto While particularly well-known for his performance of contemporary music (he has given some thirty world premières), he is also equally at home in the heroic castrato repertoire of the eighteenth century, having played the great Farinelli on stage on several occasions. In recital he has been privileged to work with Jennifer Partridge for some two decades.
in concert Christmas 2004

Also greatly in demand as a teacher, Nicholas Clapton is a professor of Singing at the Royal Academy of Music and gives regular master-classes at the Dartington International Summer School. In June 2005 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Liberal Arts summa cum laude by the Liszt Ferenc Music University, Budapest, where he is now a Visiting Professor.

In 2006 he presented the documentary Castrato for BBC4 television, and curated the hugely successful exhibition Handel and the Castrati at the Handel House Museum, London. (His research into the castrati has led to him writing for publications as various as the Daily Express, Country Life and Fortean Times.) He also appeared with James Bowman in a series of concerts commemorating the great 'early music' pioneer, David Munrow, and visited Cairo to teach at the Conservatoire, and to sing at the American University, where he gave his fourth world premiere of the year: Ashraf Fouad's song-cycle Monte Bre.

In 2007 he returned to the Budapest Zeneakadémia to give two series of master-classes, and travelled to Florence to give two concerts at the Pitti Palace. In July he premiered Cecilia's Angel by Elis Pehkonen, and in December performed Schubert's Winterreise for the seventh time, celebrating twenty years of recitals with Jennifer Partridge. In 2008 he was a contributor to the exhibition Handel and the Divas at Handel House, and to the recently published Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia. He also began a collaboration with the Kreutzer Quartet and composer Jim Aitchison, premiering Memory Field (in the studio of sculptor Antony Gormley) and Shadows of Light II (for the major Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern).

In January 2009, the new and greatly-enlarged edition of his biography of Moreschi, now subtitled ... "and the Voice of the Castrato" was named Book of the Month by Classic FM, while his second book, Budapest: City of Music (Armchair Traveller) was published in March. As a member of a Hungarian Government Committee overseeing standards in music colleges, he visited that country twice more during the spring. He sang a gala concert at the Finnish Embassy in Budapest in February, and gave a recital and master-classes at Aberdeen University (May), and the Budapest Zeneakadémia (October). In 2010 he was a soloist on two CDs showcasing 20th-century works for countertenor: Pied Piper, celebrating the life and career of David Munrow, and Ancient Sorceries (Guild). Having returned to teach at the Dartington International Summer School for the fifteenth time, he also gave a new vocal masterclass during the Third Esztergom Liszt Week. During 2011 he sang two more world premieres: the role of Sir Isaac Newton, in Will Gregory's new opera Piccard in Space at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, and, in Oxford, Máté Hollós' new song-cycle for voice and guitar, I sat me down to ponder (to be repeated in Budapest next May).