Meet David
Why do you want to sing? Maybe you're here because you already sing and you want to work out how to solve those technical problems that are holding you back, perhaps you're in a choir or you long to emulate the vocal freedom of Beyonce, or maybe you've never dared to sing in front of someone else before, but you know deep down that you were born to do it, if you could only get over that initial fear.
I can relate to that. As a child I loved to sing in the privacy of my bedroom (I was particularly fond of the Beach Boys, Eurhythmics and R.E.M.) but the thought of singing for somebody else terrified me, all because of a few words I'd heard from a teacher at primary school. It took me until I was 16 to dare to sing in front of one of my friends. Luckily, he responded with a smile and some kind words, and so we started writing songs together. That moment was crucial for me - without it I wouldn't be where I am now. It's exactly that moment of release, and that kind, supportive response, that I now aim to give all my students.
I built on that experience while studying chemistry at Oxford, taking voice lessons, trying to figure out how to sing more easily - how did some people manage to soar with ease up to the very highest notes in their range? How did others seem to have an endless supply of breath? A fascination with these questions led me to study for a Master’s degree in singing at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, where I continued to refine my technique and to confront the fears and uncertainties that were holding me back.
Since then, singing has taken me across Europe and the UK, sharing the joy of music with concert, opera and theatre audiences, children at Bach to Baby concerts and care home residents with Live Music Now. I’ve been sharing my experience with others through teaching for over ten years. Connecting with other people through song, whether as a performer or a teacher, is a huge privilege and one that I would love to share with you.
Biography
A prizewinner in the 2015 AESS Patricia Routledge English Song Competition, David Jones is equally at home in song, oratorio and opera. In May and June 2018 he received national press attention for his project Song Cycle. Riding his Brompton folding bike 1000 miles from John O'Groats to Land's End, David performed Vaughan Williams's Songs of Travel in eighteen concerts along the way, marking the sixtieth anniversary of the composer's death and celebrating the landscapes that inspired the songs.
Other highlights have included The Comedy of Errors with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon and at the Barbican, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte for Heritage Opera and the Lyric Opera Studio Weimar, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte for the Lyric Opera Studio Weimar, Sharpless in Madam Butterfly for the King’s Head Theatre and multiple roles in The Grand Duke with Forbear! Theatre. He appears regularly with Opera Anywhere in works by Humperdinck, Mozart, Menotti and Gilbert & Sullivan and was a soloist on Yehudi Menuhin’s Live Music Now scheme.
With Teatime Opera he has broken new ground in Unknowing, an ambitious staged interweaving of Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und -Leben, and his recitals have included explorations of major song cycles by Finzi, Vaughan Williams and Schumann, alongside lesser-known works by Bliss and Sullivan.