William Purefoy

William sang with the choir during its Magnificat! concert in January 2003.

William Purefoy, Countertenor

A graduate of Magdalen College Oxford, William attended the Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he received the John Clifford Pettican Award and was a finalist in the 1997 Gold Medal Competition. In 1995 he was a finalist in the Kathleen Ferrier Awards and a winner of the NFMS Young Concert Artists Award, and in 1997 won the Silver Medal from the Worshipful Company of Musicians. He studies with David Pollard.

Operatic work has included Truth (The Triumph of Beauty and Deceit Barry) Almeida Opera, Coridon (Acis and Galatea Handel) New Kent Opera, Sir Philip Sydney (Angel Magick John Harle/David Pountney) Royal Albert Hall BBC Proms, Ernesto (Il Mondo Della Luna Haydn) Garsington, Ensemble Countertenor 1 (Orfeo Monteverdi) English National Opera, Arsace (Partenope Handel) Covent Garden Festival, Buxton Festival and Aldeburgh Proms, Endimion (La Calisto Cavalli) Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Orfeo (Gluck) St Endellion Festival, Ptolemy (Giulio Cesare Handel) St John’s Smith Square and Shepherd/Huntsman (Venus and Adonis Blow) Globe Theatre.

In concert he has sung with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the King’s Consort, the New London Consort, the Musicians of the Globe, the Hanover Band, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Purcell Quartet, Concordia, La Cetra, the BBC Concert Orchestra (Friday Night Is Music Night), I Fagiolini and Cantabile. He has given recitals at the Wigmore Hall, the Barbican and the Purcell Room as well as in Innsbruck, Graz, Passau, Brezice and Radjovlica. This year, he will be appearing in a BBC documentary about William Shakespeare.

He has recorded Rosey Blood (Sederunt) (Terror and Magnificence, John Harle)Decca Argo, Ode for Saint Cecilia’s Day and David’s Lamentation Over Saul and Jonathan (Boyce, Hanover Band) ASV Gaudeamus, Mass in G Minor (Vaughan Williams, Richard Hickox) Chandos, a Purcell recording (Orchestra of the Golden Age) Naxos and a recital for the 1998 Innsbruck Festival CD.

For further biographical information, visit William’s personal website.