Davies Music

Philip Sheffield

“performed with a  sensuous gravity”

The Independent

Philip Sheffield was a choral scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge. He had further training at the Royal College of Music making his professional debut with Roger Norrington in performances of Monteverdi’s Orfeo at the Proms.

His career has been largely in the world of opera and he has performed principal roles all over the world including La Scala Milan, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, La Monnaie Brussels, Royal Opera Covent Garden, ENO, Opera North, Glyndebourne, Opera Comique Paris, Netherlands Opera and others. Highlights have been Pelléas Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande in Paris, Tom Rakewell Stravinsky The Rake’s Progress, Don Ottavio Mozart Don Giovanni and Tichon Janacek Katya Kabanova.  He has created roles with prominent composers such as Jonathan Dove, Alexander Goehr, Hans Jurgen Von Bose, Ben Mason, Michael Berkeley, Elena Firsova and Nicola Lefanu.

As a concert singer Philip has a very wide repertoire ranging from Bach to Birtwistle. He has given many performances of the Evangelist in Bach’s Passions in Holland, Belgium, Austria and Germany where his flawless German accent has been much praised. In recent years he has been in demand for a variety of challenging pieces. He sang the Songs for Dov by Tippett with the Vlaamse Opera Orchestra, Britten’s War Requiem at the Philharmonie in Berlin and Luxembourg and at various venues around the UK, Mahler’s 8^th Symphony in the Sage Gateshead, Verdi Requiem Liverpool Philharmonic, Elgar’s Coronation Ode at The Barbican, Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Britten’s Nocturne  in Montepulciano and the Philharmonie in Berlin, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius in Brussels, Haydn’s Creation with the Orchestra della Toscana on tour in Italy and concert performances of Birtwistle’s The Last Supper  with the London Sinfonietta in Milan and Turin.

Forthcoming performances include Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius with Highgate Choral Society and in Ripon Cathedral, Verdi’s Requiem and Evangelist in Bach’s St. John Passion, Janacek’s From the House of the Dead in Strasbourg and La Traviata in concert in Cambridge.

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