Biography
Current and recent operatic/stage work includes Athamas in Handel Semele at Waterperry Opera Festival and Opera Holland Park; Amos Gitaï’s multimedia verbatim play House at the Barbican Theatre, Berliner Festspiele, Teatro di Roma, and Teatros de Canal Madrid; and St. Catherine in Anna Rose Prynn/Tom Floyd The Blue Margin for Outland Opera. A keen exponent of contemporary opera, he has created several roles, including CJ in Warboy & Stewart Fierce Love (Tête-à-Tête), Daryl/the Devil in Muelas+Ward A&E (Tête-à-Tête), and all the male roles in Clare Elton/Lila Palmer These Wondering Stones (Barbican Centre). Previously he has appeared as “JL” in John Ramster’s staging of Handel Messiah (Merry Opera), Xerse in Cavalli Xerse (Grimeborn Festival), and Sorceress/Spirit in Purcell Dido and Aeneas (English Music Festival). For the Royal Opera he covered Peisander in Monteverdi The Return of Ulysses and workshopped the role of Yoël in Na’ama Zisser Mamzer/Bastard.
As an oratorio soloist he has recently appeared with the Irish Baroque Orchestra and Peter Whelan in Bach “Mass in B minor” in Dublin and Galway, and in Handel Messiah at the Wigmore Hall, which he also recorded for Linn Records. A regular collaborator with Solomon’s Knot, he has appeared with them at Wigmore Hall, the Aldeburgh Festival, the London Handel Festival, the Festival Bach Montréal, the London International Festival of Early Music, the Thüringer Bachwochen, de Singel Antwerp, the Concertgebouw Bruges, Stoller Hall, and the National Centre for Early Music. He has previously appeared as a soloist with the Hanover Band, Amici Voices, Wondr’ous Machine, and Festival Voices, at venues including St John’s Smith Square, West Road Concert Hall, and the London Handel Festival.
Much in demand as an ensemble singer, this season Nathan performs across Europe with the Monteverdi Choir, le Concert d’Astrée, the English Concert, the Dunedin Consort, and EXAUDI. He also appears regularly with The Carice Singers, Sestina, the Mogens Dahl Kammerkor, Opus Anglicanum, and the London Choral Sinfonia. As a member of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace he is honoured to have sung at many events of international importance, including most recently the State Funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and the Coronation of Their Majesties the King and Queen.
Nathan started singing as a boy chorister in the London Oratory School Schola, with whom he recorded the soundtracks to, among others, The Lord of The Rings and Finding Neverland. He went on to study at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he was Senior Choral Exhibitioner, and subsequently completed postgraduate vocal studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Theresa Goble. Equally accomplished as a musicologist, Nathan holds a PhD in music from Royal Holloway, University of London. He researches topics in the analysis and philosophy of music and supervises a number of historical and analytical topics at Cambridge University, as well as appearing as a guest lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music.