Acclaimed for her musical interpretation, presence and “warmly distinctive tone” (The Telegraph), Helen Charlston is quickly cementing herself as a key performer in the next generation of British singers. Helen won first prize in the 2018 Handel Singing Competition and was a finalist in the Hurn Court Opera Competition, and the Grange Festival International Singing Competition. She was a ‘Rising Star’ of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment 2017-2019 and a 2018 City Music Foundation Artist. In 2021, she joined Le Jardin des Voix academy with Les Arts Florissants, and the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme, and also became winner of the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize in 2021 Kathleen Ferrier Awards.
In 2020, Helen premiered The Isolation Songbook with Michael Craddock and Alexander Soares, which is a set of 15 newly commissioned songs and duets written during lockdown as a musical response to the changing world in which we found ourselves.
In 2019/20, Helen made debuts with the Academy of Ancient Music, Cambridge Handel Opera Company, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, joined Fretwork for a solo recital programme at Wigmore Hall, and continued her commissioning project of lute songs with duo partner Toby Carr. In 2020, Helen premiered the full role of Anna in the newly completed opera Blue Electric by Tom Smail.
Recent and upcoming concert highlights include Handel’s Messiah with BBC NOW and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Bach’s Weihnachtoratorium with Casa da Musica, Judas Maccabaeus with the RIAS Kammerchor, Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Paul McCreesh, her debut at the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona for Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Gabrieli Consort and Players, a worldwide tour of Handel’s Messiah with the Seattle Symphony, the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra and Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, performances as part of Barbican Sound Unbound 2019 and solo recitals at York Early Music Festival, London Handel Festival, Händel-festspiele Halle, Korčula Baroque Festival, Leicester International Music Festival and Fitzrovia Festival.
This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.
CD: An Elizabethan Christmas, Fretwork, SIGCD680
(December 2021)
…topped out by the creamy and calorific voice of Helen Charlston, a true Alto with a hint of countertenor colouring… Charlston curling her tongue around the words as if her voice were itself a viol… This is the Christmas disc I’ll be asking Santa for a hard copy of this December.
Andrew Mellor, Gramophone
The songs are beautifully delivered by the mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, who sings with firm yet confiding tone and lends the same sense of potentially endless expansion to her lines as do the viol players.
Erica Jeal, The Guardian****
Byrd's consort songs are masterpieces and it is very nice to hear some of them being sung so well as here by Helen Charlston, a young singer whom I have heard in several recordings recently and whom I rate highly.
Johan van Veen, MusicWeb International
But of course, the musical responses inspired by this period of piety are far from downbeat or dour, as a new collaboration between Fretwork and mezzo Helen Charlston illustrates… Interspersed between the solo vocal numbers, in which Charlston’s unfussy voice contrasts pleasingly with the viols’ sonority and all the performers audibly relish the subtle syncopation of Byrd’s style
David Smith, Presto Music
I do though tip my hat to the guest mezzo Helen Charlston who is clearly a singer with a future and whose contributions add greatly to the programme
Steven Whitehead, Cross Rhythms
Handel Partenope (Rosmira), Les Arts Florissants, Thiré & Lucerne
(August 2021)
…the versatile British mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston as his golden-toned lover, the spurned but dignified Rosmira.
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer*****
Exceptional projection and beautiful temperament in the contralto Helen Charlston whose homogeneous timbre and a striking depth bring a beautiful authority to the perilous "Un'altra volta ancor".
Philippe Ramin, Bachtrack*****
Helen Charlston has a superb, solidly seated contralto voice. The role of Rosmira / Eurimène seems to be tailor-made for her, as her expressions are appropriate to the character.
Victoria Okada, Vivace Cantabile*****
Isolation Songbook, Delphian DCD34253
(March 2021)
For her debut album, Helen Charlston invited composers to ‘bear witness’ to the period of isolation. With a programme that is wide-reaching and runs the gamut of human emotion, this is a powerful momento for us all.
Freya Parr, BBC Music Magazine****
…a recital that’s hard to resist, at once fresh and profoundly familiar… Also striking is Stephen Bick’s Milton setting ‘On his Blindness’, its elegiac, Tallis-infused lyricism a showcase for the stern beauty of Charlston’s mezzo and her legato phrasing.
Alexandra Coghlan, Gramophone
Witty and touching in equal measure, this personal but deeply relatable lockdown project from a young husband-and-wife-to-be stemmed from Owain Park’s appropriately bitter-sweet setting of a poem which Charlston wrote for her fiancé to mark what would have been their wedding-day last year. Other highlights include Joshua Borin’s darkly funny Nature is Returning (sung with savage brilliance by Charlston)
Katherine Cooper, Presto Classical
Bach St John Passion, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Battersea Arts Centre (March 2021)
Helen Charlston took the most tragic aria of the piece Es ist Vollbracht (It is Finished) at a daringly slow pace, but thanks to her thrilling intense tone and expressive moulding of the line it paid off.
Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph*****
CD: Eccles Semele (Juno), Academy of Ancient Music
AAM012 (January 2021)
Richard Burkhard and Helen Charlston mine some divine comic scenes as the king of the gods and his jealous wife Juno.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times****
Semele’s implacable rival Juno should steal the show whenever she appears. From her imperious opening entry to her rollicking final aria of triumph, her tone dripping with venomous glee, Helen Charlston does not miss a trick.
Gramophone
Some of the best moments fall to jealous, scheming Juno, whose scenes spring to life more readily than some of the others; the role is dispatched here with brilliant imperiousness by Helen Charlston.
Erica Jeal, The Guardian*****
…but it’s Helen Charlston’s Juno who gets both her man and the laurels by the end – deliciously ferocious in her musical vengeance.
Alexandra Coghlan, Limelight****
Dark-timbred mezzo Helen Charlston’s Juno flares magnificently, unafraid to sound ugly when furious.
BBC Music Magazine (Recording of the month)
Helen Charlston is impressive as Juno: her commanding ‘Somnus, arise’ and jaunty duet with Somnus, ‘Away let us haste’ are real highlights.
Colin Clarke, Rhinegold
There are few calls for vocal display… ‘Above measure is the pleasure’, being a rare exception that allows the excellent Helen Charlston a brief opportunity to show her mettle in this regard… richly formidable Juno.
Opera Magazine
Helen Charlston Opera Repertoire
| Britten | Albert Herring (Florence Pike) |
|---|---|
| Bernstein | Trouble in Tahiti (Dinah) |
| Dove | Tobias and the Angel (Sara) |
| Eccles | Semele (Juno) |
| Handel | Semele (Ino) |
| Monteverdi | Ballo delle ingrate (Venere) |
| Purcell | Dido and Aeneas (First Witch) |
| Rhiannon Randle | Dido is Dead (Dido) premiere |
| Tchaikovsky | Eugene Onegin (Olga) |
| Tom Smail | Blue Electric (Anna) premiere |
Helen Charlston Baroque Recital Material
| Byrd | Songs with Viol Consort: |
|---|---|
| Handel | Solo Cantatas (continuo only): |
| Monteverdi | Lamento d’Arianna |
| Purcell | Bess of Bedlam |
| Strozzi | Il Romeo |
| Telemann | Ihr Völker Hort |
Helen Charlston Song/Lieder Repertoire
| Berg | Sieben frühe Lieder |
|---|---|
| Brahms | Various, including: |
| Britten | Charm of Lullabies |
| Elgar | Sea Pictures (with orchestra and piano) |
| Haydn | Arianna a Naxos |
| Schubert | Various, including |
| Schumann | Frauenliebe und -leben (Op. 42) |
| Clara Schumann | Die gute Nacht, die ich sage dir |
| Tchaikovsky | Again as before alond |
Helen Charlston Oratorio Repertoire
| J.S. Bach | B Minor Mass |
|---|---|
| Beethoven | Symphony No. 9 |
| Buxtehude | Membra jesu nostri |
| Durufle | Requiem |
| Dvorak | Stabat Mater |
| Handel | Dixit Dominus Nisi Dominus |
| Haydn | Harmoniemesse |
| Mendelssohn | Elijah |
| Mozart | Coronation Mass |
| Pergolesi | Stabat Mater |
| Rutter | Feel the Spirit |
| Scarlatti | Missa para o Santissimo Natal |
| Stravinsky | Cantata |
| Tippett | A Child of our Time |
| Vivaldi | Gloria |
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