“The outstanding soloist, however, was Nick Pritchard’s eloquent narrator, sung with a range of colour and incisive delivery of the text that vouchsafes his place as the go-to Evangelist of the day”
Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times
Tenor Nick Pritchard is gaining fast recognition for his performances of the music of Bach and in particular his interpretation of the Evangelist in the Passions. Described as a ‘Masterly Evangelist’ in The Guardian, he has sung the role in Bach’s St John and Matthew Passions around the world and his recording of the St John Passion (Evangelist) for Deutsche Grammophon with Sir John Elliot Gardiner was nominated for a Grammy Award for best Choral Performance (2023). Recent performances of the piece include those with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra at the Concertgebouw under Jonathan Cohen, for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Polyphony and Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.
On the concert platform he has performed with Ensemble Pygmalion, Concerto Köln, Les Talens Lyriques, Les Violons du Roy, L’Orchestre du Chambre de Paris, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, English Concert, Early Opera Company, Philharmonia Orchestra, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Gabrieli Consort, the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, Early Opera Company and he made his BBC Proms debut with Britten Sinfonia under David Bates performing Mozart’s Requiem.
He has performed under conductors including Harry Bicket, John Butt, Laurence Cummings, Jonathan Cohen, Christian Curnyn, Maxim Emelyanychev, Adam Fischer, Emmanuelle Haïm, Simon Halsey, George Petrou, Raphaël Pichon, Christophe Rousset, Sir András Schiff and Ryan Wigglesworth.
A fine actor and equally at home on the operatic stage, roles have included Oronte, Alcina in a new Tim Albery production for Opera North, Lysander, A Midsummer Night’s Dream as part of the Aldeburgh Festival’s 70th anniversary, Tamino, Die Zauberflöte for Glyndebourne on Tour and for Irish National Opera and Peter Whelan, Prologue The Turn of the Screw and Ferrando, Cosí fan tutte for Opera Holland Park, Amphinomus, The Return of Ulysses for the Royal Opera House, Purcell’s The Indian Queen for the Opéra de Lille, Théâtre de Caen, Opera Vlaandern and Grand Theatre Luxembourg all under Emmanuelle Haïm as well as Albert Albert Herring, John/Angel 3, Written on Skin, Colonel Fairfax, The Yeomen of the Guard, Acis, Acis and Galatea and the title role in Candide. A regular performer of New Music he has also given several World Premieres, including creating the role of Matthew in Mark Simpson’s opera Pleasure (Opera North, Aldeburgh and The Royal Opera House).
In August 2023 Nick gave his Edinburgh International Festival recital debut with pianist Ian Tindale which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 including works by Gabriel Fauré, Francis Poulenc and Benjamin Britten. He has also given recitals with Gary Matthewman, James Bailieu, Simon Lepper, Sholto Kynoch, Christopher Glynn, Graham Johnson and Malcolm Martineau at Wigmore Hall, Oxford International Song Festival, Leeds Lieder Festival, Ryedale Festival, Lammermuir Festival and Two Mores Festivals.
The 23/24 season highlights include a US tour of Handel’s Allegro and Bach’s B Minor Mass with Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra with two performances at Carnegie Hall, New York, performances with Early Opera Company, Les Talens Lyrique Lully’s Atys at l’Opera Royal de Versailles and at the Vienna Konzerthaus, Evangelist with Irish Baroque under Peter Whelan, Residentie Orkest under Richard Egarr and Stavanger Symfoniorkester under Masato Suzuki, George Benjamin’s Written on Skin (John/Angel 3) with the Finnish Radio Symphony conducted by the composer, Messiah with the Academy of Ancient Music and the Flemish Radio Choir and Britten St Nicolas at the Aldeburgh Festival.
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Bob Chilcott: Christmas Oratorio (CD)
“One of the strengths of this oratorio lies in the narrative from Luke, given to the Evangelist – Nick Pritchard, here as at the premiere – whose mellifluous, quiet tale-telling adds lyrical narrative in between organ-accompanied hymns and new carol settings.”
Sarah Urwin Jones, BBC Music Magazine ★ ★ ★ ★
Bach, St Johns Passion, Polyphony
St John Smith Square (April 2023)
“Singing from memory, Nick Pritchard’s Evangelist, in the finest account of the role I’ve heard live, drew us through the narrative with extraordinary vividness, alert to every shift in mood and verbal inflection.”
Tim Ashley, The Guardian
Handel: Il Trionfo del tempo e del disinganno
Academy of Ancient Music at Milton Court, May 2023
Tenor Nick Pritchard (pictured above, an arch and gently disapproving Time) cherished the text, giving us some of the most musical singing of the evening, delicately shaded and graded in tone against the rainbow-coloured orchestral backdrop.
Alexandra Coghlan, The Arts Desk
Bach St Johns Passion
St Johns Smith Square 7 April 2023
(...)this Polyphony Good Friday performance – a fixture at St John’s Smith Square for slightly fewer years – delivered a version as fresh and discomfiting as if the crucifixion had taken place yesterday. That was in no small part due to Nick Pritchard, who as the Evangelist narrated the story with a vibrancy that suggested he was discovering the facts as he sang them. Pritchard has performed the role internationally in both the Matthew and John Passions and his experience shows; watching his face and listening to the nuance in his voice was like watching a CNN report with infinitely better music.
Rachel Halliburton, The Arts Desk
Singing from memory, Nick Pritchard’s Evangelist, in the finest account of the role I’ve heard live, drew us through the narrative with extraordinary vividness, alert to every shift in mood and verbal inflection.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian
Candide (Title Role)
Blackheath Halls, October 2022
Nick Pritchard, singing Candide, is one of the best younger generation tenors around, lyrically gifted, every word clear, able to act, in all respects ideal.
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
In Nick Pritchard there was an engaging and beautifully considered Candide. Pritchard combined an involving stage presence with perhaps the best sung account of the role that I have come across.
Robert Hugill, Opera Today
Opera North, Alcina (Oronte)
Grand Theatre Leeds, February 2022
(...) tenor Nick Pritchard (...) stops hearts and time with a ravishing Un momento di contento.
Alexandra Coghlan, The Telegraph
Oronte, a somewhat thankless character, is nobly represented and splendidly sung by Nick Pritchard.
Ron Simpson, The Reviews Hub
Nick Pritchard was an emphatic presence in the often thankless part of Oronte.
Melanie Eskenazi, Music OMH
She [Fflur Wyn] and Nick Pritchard’s Oronte provided the most touching performances of the evening
Martin Kettle, The Guardian
Fllur Wyn made a fiery Morgana, Alcina’s sister, and tore into her big aria ‘Tornami a vagheggiar’ with relish. Her on-off partnership with Oronte, sung by the tenor Nick Pritchard, was the crowning glory of Act 2. Pritchard matched her fervour to a tee
Martin Dreyer, Opera Magazine
St John Passion, Monteverdi Choir and Sir John Eliot Gardiner
Virtual Performance (streamed by Deutsche Grammophon), April 2021
The soloists were young, and perfectly chosen. Nick Pritchard’s tireless Evangelist was a miracle, his diction exemplary, his shaping of the line infallible.
CClarke, Seen and Heard International
It’s Nick Pritchard, however, who holds the centre. Operatic without affectation, weighing every word, movement and articulation with care, his Evangelist is wonderfully humane – part of the crowd who demand blood, even as he pities them. There are echoes of James Gilchrist here and, when the time comes, it looks like Pritchard is ready to step into the older tenor’s shoes as the great English Evangelist of his generation.
Alexandra Coghlan, iNews
The outstanding soloist, however, was Nick Pritchard’s eloquent narrator, sung with a range of colour and incisive delivery of the text that vouchsafes his place as the go-to Evangelist of the day
Richard Morrison, The Times
Bach Cantatas, Les Violons du Roy
Les Palais Montcalm & La Salle Bourgie (February 2020)
British tenor Nick Pritchard stands out with his subtle and malleable voice and luminous top notes, as shown in his recitative in the cantata, Sehet, wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem BWV 159.
Emmanuel Bernier, Le Soleil
CD: VIVAT 119 Decades. A Century of Song – Volume 4 1850-1850 (released January 2020)
released January 2020
Nick Pritchard’s dulcet lyric tenor and shapely phrasing are just what is needed here, whether in the nostalgic ‘Soucenance’ or the diaphanous, shimmering ‘Le sylphe’.
Richard Wigmore, Gramophone
... gems such as Franck’s finely crafted songs, nicely delivered by Nick Pritchard.
Natasha Loges, BBC Music Magazine, performance****, recording ****
I’ve heard [Nick Pritchard] singing live on two previous occasions, both times in English music, and I’ve been very impressed with him. It now transpires that he’s extremely well suited to French music too. His timbre is on the light side – though not lacking in strength – and there’s a plangency in his tone which fits well with the French language. Souvenance is a nice song and Susan Youens draws a very apt comparison with the piano part in Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnrade. Le Sylphe has a light, flowing piano part which Malcolm Martineau delivers with a lovely touch. The melodic line is light and airy and Pritchard makes it most attractive. He sings the final song in the group, Aimer eloquently and once again he benefits from splendid support from Martineau.
John Quinn, Musicweb International
John Blow An Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell, La Nuova Musica
Wigmore Hall (January 2020)
The evening featured the tenor Nick Pritchard and the countertenor Christopher Lowrey, whose performance of John Blow’s An Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell was of star quality. Both of them, notwithstanding their early-music specialism, have a fruity tone to their voices that really suits the mannered music of this period, in this work, adding a richness that enhanced the embellishments of the music that Blow requires, as well as contrasting perfectly with the effortlessly ‘straight’ tone of the two recorders.
Sam Smith, MusicOMH
Nick Pritchard’s Concert Repertoire
| Bach | B Minor Mass |
|---|---|
| Beethoven | Mass in C |
| Britten | Les Illuminations |
| Charpentier | Messe de Minuit |
| Handel | Israel in Egypt |
| Haydn | Nelson Mass |
| Jackson | The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ |
| Mendelssohn | Elijah |
| Monteverdi | Vespers of 1610 |
| Mozart | Mass in C minor |
| Purcell | King Arthur |
| Rossini | Petite Messe Solenelle |
Nick Pritchard’s Opera Repertoire
| Benjamin | Written on Skin (John/Angel 3) |
|---|---|
| Bernstein | Candide (Title Role) |
| Britten | Albert Herring (title) |
| Francesca Caccini | La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola di Alcina (Ruggiero) |
| Cavalli | La Calisto (Mercurio) |
| Cimorosa | The Secret Marriage (Paulino) |
| Dove | Mansfield Park (Henry Crawford) |
| Handel | Acis and Galatea (Acis) |
| Monteverdi | L'incoronazione di Poppea (Lucano) |
| Mozart | Così fan tutte (Ferrando) |
| Ravel | L’heure Espagnole (Torquemada) |
| Mark Simpson | Pleasure (Matthew) |
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