Kitty Whately & Julius Drake
Biography Kitty Whately & Julius Drake
Kitty Whately
She has performed leading roles in world and UK premieres of opera by Mark Anthony Turnage, Missy Mazzoli, Mark Adamo and Vasco Mandonça, alongside song cycles written especially for her by Jonathan Dove, Sally Beamish, Steven Hough, Juliana Hall and Tarik O’Regan. She has received critical acclaim for performances of opera by Benjamin Britten and Bernard Hermann, as well as a huge variety of roles from the core canon of classical opera.
Recent opera engagements include Lel in the English Touring Opera production of The Snow Maiden, Jocasta for Scottish Opera’s Oedipus Rex at the Edinburgh International Festival, Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro for the Verbier Festival, the title role in L'Incoronazione di Poppea for The Grange Festival. She played the role of Isabelle in Missy Mazzoli’s one-woman opera Song from the Uproar staged at The Barbican with BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers. Future operatic roles include her mainstage debut at the Royal Opera House, playing Michelle in the World premiere of Mark Anthony Turnage’s new opera Festen, and Suzuki for the Grange Park Opera production of Madame Butterfly. Other recent highlights include Dorabella Cosi fan Tutte (The Grange Festival), Hermia in the Robert Carson production of A Midsummer Night's Dream(Opéra de Rouen), Pallas The Judgement of Paris (Cambridge Baroque Opera), Hansel Hansel and Gretel and Donna Elvira Don Giovanni (Scottish Opera). In recent years she has also played Meg in Opera Holland Park’s UK premiere of Little Women by Mark Adamo, Kate Owen Wingrave (Opera National de Lorraine and Grange Park Opera), Annina Der Rosenkavalier (Garsington Opera), and Dog / Forester's Wife / Woodpecker / Owl The Cunning Little Vixen with the CBSO in Birmingham, Paris, Hamburg and Dortmund. Further operatic engagements include Isabella in Bernard Herman’s Wuthering Heights (Opera National de Lorraine), Paquette Candide (Bergen National Opera and The Grange Festival). She created the role of Mother/Other Mother in the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Coraline (Barbican produced by the Royal Opera House), and gave the world premiere of Vasco Mendonça’s The House Taken Over directed by Katie Mitchell (Aix-en-Provence, Antwerp, Strasbourg, Luxembourg, Bruges and Lisbon). She played Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Stewardess in Flight (Opera Holland Park), Nancy Albert Herring (The Grange Festival), Hermia (Bergen and on tour with Aix-en-Provence Festival in Beijing); Ippolita / Pallade in Cavalli’s Elena (Montpellier and Versailles, Aix-en-Provence Festival), and Sesto Giulio Cesare (ETO).
As a past winner of the Kathleen Ferrier award, and former BBC New Generation Artist, Kitty is in high demand as a recitalist and concert artist. She has sung with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and her frequent performances with the BBC orchestras include De Falla’s The Three Cornered Hat (BBC National Orchestra of Wales), her BBC Proms debut in Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ Suite from Act II of Caroline Mathilde, as well as recordings of Ravel’s Sheherezadewith BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne with John Wilson and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and songs by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter with BBC Concert Orchestra. Recent concert performances have included Mahler Das Lied von der Erde at the Mizmorim Festival in Basel, The Dream of Gerontius with Crouch End Festival Chorus at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Beethoven’s 9th Symphonywith BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony with the orchestra of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the Symphony Orchestra of Chetham’s School of Music.
Kitty regularly performs recital programmes in all the major chamber venues in the UK, partnering most often with Simon Lepper, Joseph Middleton, and Anna Tilbrook, among many others. Kitty makes regular appearances on BBC Radio 3, in concert and in recordings made for Radio 3’s Composer of The Week series. She features on several discs of song, including three solo albums, as well as collaborations with other singers including Roderick Williams, Mary Bevan and Gareth Brynmor John. She is a passionate champion of women composers, and her most recent album Befreit: A Soul Surrendered, with Joseph Middleton, included world premiere recordings of songs by Johanna Müller-Hermann and Margarete Schweikert, Marguerite Canal, Hedwige Chretien and Rebecca Clarke. Her latest album is the complete vocal works of the Anglo-American composer Rebecca Clarke with Anna Tilbrook and Nicholas Phan for Signum Records. Next year will see the release another two albums including artsongs by Madeleine Dring, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Grace Williams and Elizabeth Maconchy. For more informaion on Kitty's recordings see Discography. She is currently recording an album of songs by Madeleine Dring with Julius Drake for Chandos Records, and an album of songs by Vaughan Williams and his female students and poets for Albion Records, both to be released in 2026. Future engagements include recitals featuring music by Rebecca Clarke, Elizabeth Maconchy, Grace Williams, Madeleine Dring, Rita Strohl, Marguerite Canal and Armande de Polignac amongst their male contemporaries over the coming months at London Song Festival and LSO St Luke’s (for broadcast on R3). Opera engagements in 2026 include Tamerlano for the London Handel Festival and Wozzeck for London Philharmonic Orchestra. Later this year she will record a new album of French song to include world premiere recordings of songs by Hedwige Chrétien and Marguerite Canal on the Chandos label.
Julius Drake
lives in London and enjoys an international reputation as one of the finest instrumentalists in his field, collaborating with many of the world’s leading artists, both in recital and on disc. His passionate interest in song has led to invitations to devise song series for Wigmore Hall, London; The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; 92nd Street Y, New York; and the Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin. He curates an annual series of song recitals – Julius Drake and Friends – in the historic Middle Temple Hall in London. Julius Drake is Professor of Collaborative Piano at the Guildhall School of Music in London and he is regularly invited to give masterclasses worldwide.
Julius Drake’s many recordings include a widely acclaimed series with Gerald Finley for Hyperion Records of which ‘Songs by Samuel Barber’, ‘Schumann: Dichterliebe & other Heine Settings’ and ‘Britten: Songs & Proverbs of William Blake’ won the 2007, 2009 and 2011 Gramophone Awards; recordings with Ian Bostridge and Alice Coote for EMI; with Joyce DiDonato, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Matthew Polenzani for Wigmore Live; and with Anna Prohaska for Alpha. Julius Drake’s recording of Janáček’s ‘The Diary of One Who Disappeared’, with tenor Nicky Spence and mezzo-soprano Václava Housková for Hyperion Records, won both the Gramophone and the BBC Music Magazine Awards in 2020.
Concerts this season include recitals at La Scala, Milan and the Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid with Ludovic Tézier; return visits to the Boulez Saal Berlin for the series ‘Lied und Lyrik’; a recital tour in the USA with Ian Bostridge; the complete Mahler songs in five recitals in the Mahler Festival at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; recitals at the Opera Liceu in Barcelona with Gerald Finley, Sarah Connolly and Irene Theorin; return visits to the Chamber Music Festivals of Santa Fe, West Cork and Oxford; concerts in Berlin and at the Aldeburgh Festival with Andrè Schuen; piano duet recitals with Elisabeth Leonskaja in Austria, including at the Schubertiade Festival; recitals in the USA and Europe with Fleur Barron, Mercedes Gancedo, Christopher Prégardien, Julia Kleiter Anna Prohaska and Roderick Williams,; and at Wigmore Hall, London the Season Opening concert celebrating the Fauré Anniversary, as well as recitals with Alice Coote, Stuart Jackson, Sofia Fomina and Brindley Sherratt.
