Jonathan Saunders

Jonathan began singing at an early age, joining the church choir of St Mary the Virgin, Mortlake, aged six. While the trumpet was his principal instrument through his teenage years, he already had solo experience as a singer before leaving school, including the baritone solos in Faure's Requiem and Jesus in Charpentier's Le Reniement de St Pierre. In 1998 he was awarded a Choral Scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge, where he studied Mathematics and Astrophysics, becoming Senior Choral Scholar in 2000. During this time at Clare he gained further solo experience in concerts and opera, singing the baritone lead in the world premiere of Broken Lines by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, taking a masterclass with Ian Bostridge, and touring across Europe and North America with the chapel choir. Following graduation in 2001, Jonathan joined the Applied Modelling and Computation Group at Imperial College, London, completing a PhD in Geophysics in 2004. Meanwhile, he worked as a freelance singer, continuing to perform regularly across the UK in concerts and opera and studying singing with Margaret Lobo. In 2007 he decided to change things around, beginning studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and working part-time at ICL with the aim of pushing forward his singing career into new areas. He spent a rewarding year at the Guildhall, studying with Robert Dean and inspired by the then Head of Vocal Studies, Robin Newton. He graduated with distinction in 2008 and has since taken on professional opera roles and numerous other projects, as well as becoming a very proud father.

Jonathan's performance repertoire spans the centuries, from Gombert and Gesualdo through Bach, Handel and Mozart, to the contemporary music of Fox, Skempton, Finnissy, Lutyens, Scelsi, Sciarrino, Xenakis, Ferneyhough and Rihm. Now becoming well-known in the contemporary music world, Jonathan has since 2008 given premier performances of Legion by Edward Nesbit using the award-winning poetry of David Harsent and Wrack by Rupert Cross, as well as Richard Baker's song cycle, Slow Passage, Low Prospect, and a new oratorio, Shall Life Inherit by Peter White. He sings regularly with EXAUDI, and through 2010 worked with l'Instant Donne on a major new work by Gerard Pesson and with the San Francisco Symphony on Stravinsky's Threni.