| Biography | Ruby Philogene, a mezzo-soprano, has sung in opera, oratio, and recital across England, Europe, and the United States with some of the best conductors, orchestras, accompanists, and singers in the world today. In 2003, she was made a Member of the British Empire (MBE) on the Queen's Birthday Honours list for her services to music.
Ms. Philogene was born in London and studied singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Curtis Institute, Philadelphia. She won the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Award in London, 1993.
Her opera roles include the Duchess in Verdi's Louisa Miller and the Page in Salome at the Royal Opera, Convent Garden, the title role in Carmen with Opera North, Rosina in The Barber of Seville for Garsington Opera, Maddalena in Rigoletto for the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Smeraldina in The Love of Three Oranges for Opéra de Lyon and the San Francisco Opera Company, Siegrune in The Valkyrie for English National Opera and Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas for the Zeeland Music Festival and the Deutsches Opera, Berlin. She has sung many roles for the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels including Dryade in Ariadne auf Naxos and Blumenmadchen in Parsifal under Antonio Pappano and Hippolyta in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream under Ivor Bolton.
In contemporary repertoire, she sang in Vicor Ullman's Der Kaiser von Atalantis and created the role of Calliope in Pierre Bartholomee's Oedipe sur la Route opposite Jose Van dam for the Theatre de la Monnaie. She sang the title role in the world premiere of Alexander Goehr's Arianna in Cambridge. She has also sung the roles of Omar in John Adam's The Death of Kinghoffer for the Onafankelijk Tonel in Amsterdam, the Spanish Lady in Berstien's Candide with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and toured to the Bobign Theatre, Paris, the English national Opera, London, the Bayerische Staatoper, Munich and the Lincoln Centre, New York in Deborah Warner's production of Leos Janacek's The Diary of One who Disappeared. She has also performed Three Songs by Ruth Crawford Seeger with the Nieuw Ensemble conducted by Ed Spajaard.
In early music she has sung the title role in Handel's Orlando with the Gabrieli Consort under Paul MacCreesh and Jesu Soto il Peso della Croce by Gian Francesco de Majo under Fabio Biondi with Europa Galante. She has appeared with Bach Collegium of Japan singing Handel's The Messiah (in the Mozart version) in Tokyo and also appeared at the Innsbruck Early Music Festival.
Ms. Philogene has sung under some of the best conductors and orchestras of our time including Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti and the Philharmonia and Michael Tilson Thomas and San Francisco Symphony. Others include Antonoio Pappano and Chistoph Von Dohnanyi as well as Ivor Bolton, Kent Nagano, Roger Norrington, Lord Yehudi Menhuhin, and Franz Welser-Möst and Sir Davis Willcocks.
Her concert repertoire is very diverse and ranges from the baroque era to contemporary including Hector Berlioz Nuits d'Ete, Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder and Symphony No. 2, Maurice Ravel's Chansons de Madecasses, Sergei Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, Mozart's Requiem, Verdi's Requiem, The Requiem Mass by Luigi Cherubini and Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore.
She sings regularly in recital with pianist Julius Drake: most recently they performed at the Quelle Festival in southern France and the West Cork Chamber of Music Festival, Ireland. She has sung in recital with tenor Ian Bostridge in the Vienna Konzerthaus and at the Schubertiade Festival, Schwarzenberg, Austria and with Bryn Tefel in St. David's Hall, Cardiff.
Ruby Philogene has recorded many cds including the role of Hermia in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream with the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis (Philips), The Complete Folk Songs by Beethoven with pianist Malcolm Martineau and baritone Thomas Allen (Deutche Grammophone). Paulus by Felix Mendelssohn, conducted by Leon Botstein with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Arabesque), Arianna by Alexander Goehr (NMC) and her own cd of spirituals, Steal Away with the London Adventist Chorale (EMI) as well as duets with soprano Janice Watson of Complete Serenity (Conifer Classics). She also appeared in the DVD/Video recoding performance of Salome at the Royal Opera Theatre House, Convent Garden under Christopher von Dohnanyi for Decca. |