Jessica Dandy
Contralto
Jess Dandy studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she held a fellowship and graduated with distinction. She was the winner of the London Bach Society Singers Prize 2017 and Oxford Lieder Young Artist 2018. She currently studies with Gary Coward. A Britten-Pears Young Artist and Heidelberger Frühling Scholar, she has performed at 22 Mansfield Street, Holywell Music Room, Wigmore Hall, Barbican Hall, Pierre Boulez Saal and Heidelberg Stadthalle. Jess is also co-founder with mezzo-soprano, Joanna Harries of Song Path, a walking concert series, founded to promote walking and music-making in the context of mental health and raising funds for Mind UK. To this end, she is the recipient of the Royal Overseas League Roderick Lakin Memorial Scholarship.
Opera highlights include two Royal Opera House workshops on new works by Datta/Glynn Maxwell and Philip Venables 4.48 Psychosis. Jess also covered the role of the Messenger and was a member of the ensemble in the Royal Opera House/Roundhouse production of Monteverdi Orfeo with director Michael Boyd and conductor Christopher Moulds and played the multi-part contralto role in Jack Furness’ production of Into the Little Hill for Shadwell Opera with Finnegan Downie Dear conducting.
On the concert platform appearances include Mozart Requiem at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Berlioz Roméo et Juliette at the Barbican and Salle Pleyel with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev, Andriessen De Staat at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with Simon Wills and Reich Music for the BBC Proms Multi-Story with Christopher Stark. Jess is also an experienced ensemble singer with the Monteverdi Choir, The King’s Consort, Le Concert d’Astrée, Polyphony, the Gabrieli Consort and Philharmonia Voices.
Recent engagements include a recording of Handel’s Samson (Micah) with John Butt and the Dunedin Consort, alto solos in their performances of Bach’s B Minor Mass at The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh and Wigmore Hall, Mozart Coronation Mass and Haydn Mass in Time of War with Chanctonbury Chorus, and her festival debut at Ulverston International Music Festival. Future engagements include Stanford’s Mass Via Victrix with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Handel’s Messiah with the Halle Orchestra, and alto solos in the St John Passion with Stephen Layton and the Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras. In recital, Jess can next be heard at the Oxford Lieder Festival and at Aberystwyth Arts Centre with pianist Dylan Perez.