“The UK’s most convincing heldenbariton right now.” — Hugh Canning, Opera magazine
Welsh-Irish bass-baritone Paul Carey Jones has appeared as a principal guest artist for opera companies across the UK and Europe. He was the 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, the Forester The Cunning Little Vixen, Noye Noye’s Fludde, and Balstrode Peter Grimes.
His operatic work includes appearances for the Royal Ballet and Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Northern Ireland Opera, and Opera Holland Park. Teatro Rossini di Lugo, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Teatro Comunale Bolzano, Gothenburg Opera, Wexford Festival Opera, and the Icelandic Opera. Other highlights include the title role in the Chinese premiere of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde in Beijing and Shanghai, Balstrode in the Baltic premiere of Peter Grimes for Estonian National Opera, and the world premieres of John Metcalf’s Under Milk Wood, Stephen McNeff’s The Burning Boy, Stuart MacRae’s Prometheus Symphony, and Gareth Glyn’s Tanau’r Lloer.
Paul Carey Jones also has 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, Julius Drake, Ian Ryan, Jocelyn Freeman, Helen Collyer and Aleksandra Myslek.
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 and Grace Williams’s Missa Cambrensis with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, 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 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.
As an author, his critically acclaimed first book of essays, Giving It Away — Classical Music in Lockdown and other fairytales, was hailed by Opera magazine as “a powerful traversal of life in the pandemic”, and was followed by its sequel Things Left Unsaid, published in December 2025. He is currently a doctoral researcher at the University of Westminster, funded by a prestigious Quintin Hogg Trust studentship, examining approaches to the use of Artificial Intelligence in the field of professional vocal healthcare. and he is a published academic author in the field.
His other interests include data-driven analysis of the issues facing performing arts freelancers in the UK as a core member of Freelancers Make Theatre Work, and he is co-author of Making Freelance Work, a new book examining these issues scheduled for release in 2026 by Bristol University Press.
December 2025
