Robin Blaze is well established in the front rank of interpreters of Purcell, Bach and Handel, and his career has taken him to concert halls and festivals in Europe, North and South America, Japan and Australia. His opera engagements have included Athamas Semele at Covent Garden; Didymus Theodora for Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Arsamenes Xerxes, Oberon A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamor Jephtha for English National Opera; and Bertarido Rodelinda at the Göttingen Handel Festival.
He has worked with many distinguished conductors in the early music field: Harry Christophers, Emmanuelle Haïm, Philippe Herreweghe, Christopher Hogwood, Ton Koopman, Paul Goodwin, Gustav Leonhardt, Robert King, Nicholas Kraemer, Sir Charles Mackerras, Trevor Pinnock and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. His work with Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan has been particularly praised by critics: the two latest CD releases, Bach’s B Minor Mass and the three solo countertenor cantatas, have been described as “heart-stopping” in Gramophone.
Recent and future highlights include Bach’s St John Passion with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra, Purcell Odes at the Berlioz Festival with The King’s Consort, Bach’s B Minor Mass with The Bach Choir, Handel’s Messiah with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Bach’s Magnificat with La Chapelle Harmonique, performances of Bach Cantatas and Pergolesi’s Salve Regina with Florilegium at Wigmore Hall, a recital with world-renowned lutenist Elizabeth Kenny at Carnegie Hall, and Robin also continues his collaboration with the BCJ with concerts in Japan and in Europe.
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Bach B minor Mass, The Bach Choir
Royal Festival Hall (February 2020)
Countertenor Robin Blaze has an incisive yet rounded upper register that made the first notes of Bach’s extraordinary ‘Agnus Dei’ heart-stopping in its beauty.
Benjamin Poore, MusicOMH****
Robin Blaze summed up what was a great contribution throughout with the a very moving ‘Agnus Dei’: he draws you into this private communication superbly.
Kevin Rogers, Classical Source
Handel Messiah, English Chamber Orchestra, Leeds Town Hall
(December 2019)
Tritschler and the leaner timbre of counter tenor Robin Blaze were finely balanced in the duet O Death, Where is Thy Sting?
Geoffrey Mogridge, Ilkley Gazette
Bach Christmas Oratorio, Minnesota Orchestra
(December 2018)
The English countertenor Robin Blaze made fluid contributions.
Terry Blain, Minnesota Star Tribune
Odes to St Cecilia: Purcell, Britten & Handel, The King’s Consort
(November 2018)
…with fine singing from the soloists, soprano, Julia Doyle, countertenor, Robin Blaze and Joshua Ellicott, tenor.
Frank Cliff, Eastern Daily Press
Bach Secular Cantatas Vol 10, Bach Collegium Japan, BIS-2351
(August 2018)
Robin Blaze – representing the allegory of ‘good fortune’ – lightly glides through his picture of unequivocal goodwill with customary panache.
Jonathan Freeman-Attwood
Bach Magnificat & Bekennen will ich seinen Namen
Bach Collegium Japan, Barbican, London (April 2016)
Bekennen will ich seinen Namen, a single, emollient aria beautifully delivered here by countertenor Robin Blaze alongside the duetting violins of Ryo Terakado and Yukie Yamaguchi, with Suzuki on chamber organ.
Erica Jeal, The Guardian
For the consoling “Bekennen will ich seinen Namen”, all that survives of cantata BWV200, mellifluous countertenor Robin Blaze sang to an accompaniment of two violins and continuo, but it proved enough to fill the hall. How well the risk paid off.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times
I was transported by the loveliness of the flute solo and captured by the debonair way in which countertenor Robin Blaze delighted us with how “the Lord hath filled the hungry with good things”... Blaze showed timbre that was naturally warm and expressive.
David Karlin, bachtrack.com
In the cantata “Bekennn will ich”, Robin Blaze’s sweetly assertive falsetto benefited from the even further miniaturised orchestra: two violins, cello and Suzuki at the chamber organ.
Nick Kimberley, Evening Standard
The duetting of countertenor Robin Blaze and tenor Colin Balzer in the “Et Misericordia” of theMagnificat was a delight.
Sebastian Scotney, The Arts Desk
The ‘Agnus dei’, transcribed from Cantata ‘Lobet Gott in Seinen reichen’ BWV 11 in G minor, was excellently sung/phrased by countertenor Robin Blaze who achieved an impressive dialogue with the conductor.
Geoff Diggines, Seen and Heard International
Purcell Songs Realised by Britten
Champs Hill CHRCD106 (June 2016)
‘Sweeter than Roses’, another of Britten’s more interventionist settings, is lovingly treated by countertenor Robin Blaze.
Richard Fairman, Gramophone
Bach Secular Cantatas
Bach Collegium Japan, Bach Complete Works Volume 6 / BIS (May 2016)
Robin Blaze produces a gloriously bell-like radiance…One cannot find but solace and satisfaction in the assuaging dialogues of Carolyn Sampson and Robin Blaze.
Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Gramophone
Handel Messiah, Pittsburgh Symphony
Heinz Hall (December 2015)
Counter-tenor Robin Blaze made a superb symphony debut in “Messiah.” His voice is both agile and very well centered and made his arias, such as “But, who may abide” and “He was despised,” high points of the evening. He was also a superb partner with Appleby in the duet “Death, where is thy sting?
Mark Kanny, TribLive.com
Bach St John Passion
Brecon Baroque Festival, Brecon Cathedral (October 2015)
Only the soprano, Alison Hill, and alto, Robin Blaze, were confined to their arias: both so good that one waited eagerly for their reappearances, strictly rationed by Bach.
Stephen Walsh, theartsdesk.com
Robin Blaze Concert
| Ades | The Lover in Winter |
|---|---|
| Bach | B minor Mass |
| Britten | Canticles |
| Buxtehude | Membra Jesu |
| Castello | Exultate Deo |
| Grandi | Amo Christum |
| Handel | Belshazzar (Daniel) |
| Marini | Jesu, Dulcis Memoria |
| Monteverdi | Iam Moriar |
| Orff | Carmina Burana |
| Pergolesi | Salve Regina |
| Purcell | Ode for St Cecilia's Day |
| Rigatti | Cum Invocarem |
| Rovetta | Salve Regina |
Robin Blaze Opera
| Britten | A Midsummer Nights Dream (Oberon) |
|---|---|
| Handel | Giulio Cesare (Tolomeo) |
| Monteverdi | Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (Umana fragilitá/Anfinomo) |
| Purcell | Dido and Aeneas (Sorceress) |
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