For our third and final solo showcase, we’re delighted to present Michael Craddock who will be singing Isolation Songbook – a project he has jointly brought to fruition with his fiancé Helen Charlston.
Tickets for the concert are available here, and you can buy the CD of Isolation Songbook here.
Michael Craddock started his formal musical education with the choir of Trinity College Cambridge, with whom he sang for four years, whilst studying Mathematics, and now combines his time as a regular member of The Gesualdo Six with a busy schedule of freelance oratorio, operatic and song perfomances in the UK and further afield.
Operatic performances include Walton The Bear (Smirnov) for Opera Anywhere, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bottom) in Aldeburgh, sharing the role with Matthew Rose, Donizetti Don Pasquale (Dr. Malatesta) for Opera Minima and Verdi’s La Traviata (Marchese) for Regent’s Opera at the Bermuda Festival. He sang the dual roles of Alfio/Tonio in Hampstead Garden Opera’s performances of Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci and gave the role of Dandini in the Bedford Park Festival production of La Cenerentola. Most recently he performed the part of the Usher in Sullivan’s Trial by Jury, with the OAE and John Wilson.
He has a particular affinity for the music of JS Bach, and has given many performances with the group Amici Voices, who specialise in one-voice-per-part performances of Bach’s vocal works. In their performance of the St Matthew Passion ‘Michael Craddock … deserve(d) special mention’ (Early Music Review). He was singled out by Opera News magazine for ‘beautifully shaped’ solo singing, with ‘comforting tone’ in Amici Voices CD release of BWV 106 and 182 (Hyperion). Oratorio solos include bass arias in the St Matthew Passion with the Auckland Philharmonia, Pilate/Arias in the St John Passion with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Messiah with Hereford Choral Society.
Other freelance consort work includes engagements with The Tallis Scholars, The Marian Consort, Vox Luminis, The Gabrieli Consort, Polyphony, Contrapunctus, Le Concert D’astree, The Cardinall’s Musick, and the Choir of the Enlightenment.