Biography – Significant Events

Please select from the list below to see further details

Neil Jenkins’ significant events in a 40-year career:

1967SeptemberJoined the Deller Consort, and made 1st recordings for Harmonia Mundi label
1967October 27thLondon Debut Recital, Purcell Room, with Roger Vignoles
1967December1st performances of the title role in Britten’s St Nicolas
1968May 17thFirst solo BBC Broadcast ‘ Haydn Great Organ Mass
1968August 17thOperatic Debut in Menotti’s The Consul, produced by Giancarlo Menotti
1968-9 Guest soloist with Gary Bertini’s Israel Chamber Orchestra for 2 seasons singing Britten’s Serenade & Finzi’s Dies Natalis amongst other solo tenor works
1970 Debuts in RFH (March) & RAH (December); 1st solo recording (Finzi song-cycle)
1971 Performs Dies Natalis with Newbury Strings, conducted by Christopher Finzi
1972 Winner of the NFMS Award; 1st Prom; 1st appearance with Kent Opera 1st TV appearance in Verdi’s Falstaff; 1st work with Benjamin Britten
1974 WNO debut; Professor of Singing at R.C.M; 1st Three Choirs Festival
1975 1st concert with David Willcocks and the Bach Choir; 1st Aldeburgh Festival
1976 ‘Johnny Inkslinger’ in Britten’s Paul Bunyan at Aldeburgh and on tour
1979 1st appearance with Netherlands Opera in The Consul, produced by Menotti
1981 Peter Grimes at Brighton Festival; Scottish Opera debut in Pearl Fishers
1981-5 Records entire canon of G & S operettas for BBC Radio 2, conductor Mackerras
1982 1st appearance at Glyndebourne in Higglety Pigglety Pop, recorded on Video
1983 Opera North debut in Eugene Onegin & The Cunning Little Vixen
1986 1st appearance with Geneva Opera in Strauss Elektra, revived & recorded *@1990
1987 Soloist in Tippett’s A Child of our Time at televised First Night of the Proms 1st appearances of the Jenkins Family Singers, later the Neil Jenkins Chorale
1989 Soloist in Bernstein’s Candide recorded for DG, conducted by the composer
1991 1st appearance with Ditchling Choral Society, as Evangelist in St John Passion
1993 First musical editions, recordings and publications for Kevin Mayhew Ltd.
1995 First musical editions and translations for Novello Edition and OUP
1995 – 2001 Begins his conducting career as Musical Director of Brighton Chamber Choir
2002 Appointed Cummins-Harvey Fellow Commoner at Girton College, Cambridge
2002 – 2014 Musical Director of Ditchling Choral Society, later Sussex Chorus
2004 Sir Charles Santley Memorial Award presented by Worshipful Co. of Musicians

2007 – 2017

 

Artistic Director of Ardingly International Music School (AIMS) with his wife Penny as Administrator …

2017

 

Curates “John Beard exhibition at Handel House

2017

 Celebrates the 50th anniversary of his professional debut

The Times Saturday 28th October *1967

Welcome to a new English Tenor
Well-schooled tenors are never thick on the ground, so when a new one, such as Neil Jenkins, appears on the musical scene word spreads fast ‘ and word was confirmed at his Purcell Room recital. Here is a clear, soundly produced, not over-large voice, rather in the Wilfred Brown mould. Such was his assurance that there was hardly a bad note or an ill-formed phrase all evening, doubtless the fruit of hard training…