This week’s #RAArtistinFocus is tenor Joshua Ellicott! A leading Evangelist, this Passion season he’s looking forward to singing Bach’s St Matthew Passion with The Bach Choir with David Hill, Dunedin Consort with Sofi Jeannin and the Residentie Orkest with Richard Egarr in the Netherlands.
Renowned for his great range of colour and commitment to the text, Joshua has recently appeared with the Deutsche Oper Berlin in Benedikt von Peter’s staging of the St Matthew Passion as the Evangelist conducted by Alessandro De Marchi, the Freiburger Barockorchester in Caldara’s Maddalena ai piedi di Christo with René Jacobs, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in St John Passion with Philippe Pierlot, and at Royal Danish Opera in Il Trionfo with Lars Ulrik Mortensen.
Joshua's flexible voice also lends itself wonderfully to later repertoire and he is a fantastic Britten interpreter, particular the Serenade and St Nicholas cantata.
Song is another big feature of Joshua's artistry, and one of his great successes is his programme devised around the First World War letters of Josh’s Great Uncle Jack, where dramatic readings of letters are interspersed with song. A particularly special performance took place at the Cologne Early Music Festival where some of the letters were translated into German and read by Joshua.
“After his superb Samson with the Dunedin Consort, Joshua Ellicott excels as the villainous yet weakly vacillating Grimoaldo.” Gramophone
Two of Joshua's recordings from recent seasons include Handel’s Rodelinda with The English Concert (Recording of the Month, BBC Music Magazine, July 2021), and Handel’s Samson with the Dunedin Consort (Gramophone Awards, 2020 Finalist – Choral)
https://www.joshuaellicott.com/listen
