Welsh-Irish bass-baritone Paul Carey Jones has appeared as a principal guest artist for opera companies across the UK and Europe. He was winner of the 2013 Wagner Society Singing Competition and was recently elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of his contribution to the classical music industry.
A growing reputation in the three manifestations of Wotan in Wagner’s Ring cycle has seen him appear extensively in these roles to critical acclaim, most recently for Longborough Festival Opera in the summer of 2024, where Opera Now hailed him as “one of the finest Wotans of our time”.
His other heldenbariton roles include Der Holländer Der Fliegende Holländer, Hans Sachs Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Kurwenal Tristan und Isolde, Amfortas Parsifal, Donner Das Rheingold, Gunther Götterdämmerung, Peter Hänsel und Gretel, Dr Schön / Jack the Ripper Lulu. Beyond German repertoire, his roles have included Scarpia Tosca, Marcello La Bohème, Lescaut Manon Lescaut, Nick Shadow The Rake's Progress, Don Alfonso Così Fan Tutte, Figaro Le Nozze di Figaro, title role Don Giovanni, Sprecher Die Zauberflöte, and the Forester The Cunning Little Vixen.
Recent house debuts have included appearances at the Teatro Comunale Bolzano, Gothenburg Opera, Opera Holland Park, and the Icelandic Opera as The Colonel in Daniel Bjarnason’s Brothers. He made his house debut for the Royal Opera Covent Garden in 2016 as Ivan Ivanovich / Countess’ Lackey in The Nose. His operatic work also includes appearances for Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Northern Ireland Opera, Teatro Rossini di Lugo and Teatro Comunale di Bologna.
Other recent highlights include the title role in the Chinese premiere of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde in Beijing and Shanghai, and the world premieres of John Metcalf’s Under Milk Wood, Stephen McNeff’s The Burning Boy and Stuart MacRae’s Prometheus Symphony.
Paul Carey Jones also has an extensive experience as a concert soloist. His oratorio repertoire includes over fifty major works, including Mendelssohn's Elijah, Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem, Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony, Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, Walton's Belshazzar's Feast, Beethoven's 9th Symphony and Bach's John and Matthew Passions. As a recitalist he has formed ongoing collaborations in recital and recording with the pianists Llyr Williams, Ian Ryan and Jocelyn Freeman.
His extensive discography includes three solo song albums, Enaid - Songs of the Soul for Sain, Songs Now for Meridian, and Song Lied Cân for Ty Cerdd, the title role in Arwel Hughes’ Dewi Sant, as well as the original cast recording of Hedd Wyn 2117 (Stephen McNeff / Gruff Rhys), and the original cast recording of Under Milk Wood (John Metcalf / Dylan Thomas).
A committed advocate of Twentieth Century and contemporary music, he has given the world premiere performances of operas, symphonies, songs and song cycles by composers including Stuart MacRae, John Metcalf, Jonathan Dove, Stephen McNeff, Sadie Harrison, Brian Irvine, Gavin Higgins, Gareth Glyn, and Emily Hall.
Paul Carey Jones works regularly as an audition panel member, media commentator, competition adjudicator and increasingly as a teacher, coach and mentor. Recent work in these capacities has included engagements for BBC Cymru/Wales, S4C, the National Eisteddfod of Wales, and the Bryn Terfel Scholarship.
His critically acclaimed first book Giving It Away - Classical Music in Lockdown and other fairytales was published in October 2020 and is on sale from online booksellers worldwide. His other interests include campaigning on the issues facing performing arts freelancers in the UK as a core member of Freelancers Make Theatre Work and conducting research into the use of Artificial Intelligence in vocal healthcare for singers, most recently being lead author on the published paper Machine Learning for Monitoring Vocal Health and Performance of Professional Singers presented at the 2024 ISCAS Conference in Singapore.
September 2024
