Artists

British bass-baritone Ashley Riches read English at the University of Cambridge where he was a member of the King’s College Choir under Stephen Cleobury. He went on to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and is rapidly emerging as one of today’s finest young singers.

A former Jette Parker Young Artist, his roles for the Royal Opera House include Morales Carmen, Mandarin Turandot, Baron Douphol La Traviata and Officer Les Dialogues des Carmelites. For the English National Opera, Ashley has sung Escamillo Carmen, Count Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro, Schaunard La Bohème and the Pirate King The Pirates of Penzance. Elsewhere, he has sung Brander Le damnation de Faust for the Glyndebourne Festival under Robin Ticciati; Claudio Agrippina at the Grange Festival; Don Giovanni (title role) and Ibn-Hakia Iolanta for Opera Holland Park; Simon Peter in Schubert’s Lazarus in a new Frederic Wake-Walker production at the Potsdamer Winteroper; and Count Almaviva in Tokyo.

Highlights on the concert platform include Bernardino Benvenuto Cellini, Berlioz Lelio and Verdi’s Requiem with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra under Sir John Eliot Gardiner; The Silver Tassie with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Ryan Wigglesworth; Bernstein’s Wonderful Town with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle recorded for LSO Live; a European tour of Giulio Cesare & Agrippina under Christophe Rousset with Les Talens Lyriques; recordings and tours of The Fairy Queen and King Arthur with the Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh; Sonmus/Cadmus Semele with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Rousset; Mozart and Delius Requiems with the MDR Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk under McCreesh; and Handel’s Messiah with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under Trevor Pinnock.

A keen recitalist, and former BBC New Generation Artist (2016-2018), Ashley is a regular soloist at London’s Wigmore Hall. His other recitals this season take him to the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with Julius Drake; the International Lied Festival in Zeist and Oxford Lieder Festival with Sholto Kynoch; and the Two Moors Festival and Wiltshire Music Centre for BBC Radio 3 with Joseph Middleton.

Last updated: Jul 2020