We are delighted to confirm the visit of Old-Boy, Ian Bostridge (1969-1978) to the Prep on Wednesday April 25th. In the afternoon Ian may have the opportunity to listen to our choristers and offer advice, before giving an evening recital. The evening will conclude with a question and answer session hosted by Huw Humphries, current Prep dad and contemporary of Ian from his time the Prep.
We are thrilled to have Ian join us for what promises to be a spectacular evening of music to launch our ‘Fallen Old Boys’’ Plaque Appeal; more information on this appeal will follow.
Ian Bostridge began singing professionally at the age of 27, and made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1993, his Purcell Room debut (an acclaimed Winterreise) and his Aldeburgh Festival debut in 1994. Since then his international recital career has taken him to the Salzburg, Edinburgh, Munich, Vienna, Aldeburgh and Schwarzenberg Schubertiade Festivals and to the main stages of Carnegie Hall and the Teatro alla Scala, Milan. He has held artistic residencies at the Vienna Konzerthaus and Schwarzenberg Schubertiade (2003/04), a Carte-Blanche series with Thomas Quasthoff at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw (2004/05), a Perspectives series at Carnegie Hall (2005/06), the Barbican, London (2008), the Luxembourg Philharmonie (2010/11), the Wigmore Hall (2011/12) and Hamburg Laeiszhalle (2012/13).
In the autumn of 2014 he embarked on a European recital tour of Schubert’s Winterreise with Thomas Adès to coincide with the publication by Faber and Faber in the UK and Knopf in the USA of his book Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession. In 2016 Ian was awarded the The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize for non-fiction writing for the book which will be translated into a total of twelve languages.
His recordings have won all the major international record prizes and been nominated for 15 Grammys, including most recently, Britten songs with Antonio Pappano for Warner Classics, Schubert songs with Julius Drake for Wigmore Hall Live and Shakespeare Songs with Antonio Pappano for Warner Classics (Grammy Award, 2017).
He read history at St John’s College, Oxford (1992-5) and in 2001 was elected an honorary fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 2003 he was made an Honorary Doctor of Music by the University of St Andrews and in 2010 he was made an honorary fellow of St John’s College Oxford. He was made a CBE in the 2004 New Year’s Honours. In 2014 he was Humanitas Professor of Classical Music at the University of Oxford.
