Darren Jeffery

Born in 1976 in Fordham, Cambridgeshire, England, bass-baritone Darren Jeffery studied with Patrick McGuigan at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and won the Curtis Gold Medal at the end of his student years. He is currently continuing studies with Margaret Kingsley. As a member of the Young Artists Programme, Jeffery had opportunities early on to appear at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, performing such roles as Masetto (Don Giovanni), Monterone (Rigoletto), Bottom (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and Father Trulove (The Rake’s Progress). He has appeared as Donner in Das Rheingold and as the Speaker in Die Zauberflöte at English National Opera; in Montpellier he has performed the title role in Mozart’s Figaro; and at the Teatro Real Madrid he sang Truffaldino in Strauss’s Ariadne as well as the Hauptmann in Berg’s Wozzeck. His 2010 summer festival assignments include, among others, Lieutenant Ratcliffe in Britten’s Billy Budd at the Glyndebourne Festival and Comte Capulet in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette at the Salzburg Festival. Darren Jeffery’s concert repertoire includes such works as the Bach Passions and the B minor Mass, Handel’s Alexander’s Feast and Messiah, Haydn’s The Creation, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Verdi’s Requiem, and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. He has appeared with the Hallé Orchestra, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Darren Jeffery has also recorded Mozart’s Requiem under the direction of Colin Davis.

July 2010