Winner of both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2009 London Handel Festival Singing Competition, Ruby Hughes is the daughter of the celebrated Welsh ceramicist Elizabeth Fritsch. Born in London, she attended the Arts Educational School, Tring, furthering her studies in voice and ‘cello at Chetham’s School of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, before gaining a First Class Distinction Concert Diploma in Concert and Song at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Munich, working with Edith Wiens.
In 2005, she was a Prizewinner at the Mozarteum Sommer Akademie, Salzburg, and in 2006, gained a Royal Philharmonic Society Susan Chilcott Award. Her other awards include a Vocal Prize in the 2002 Gerald Moore Competition, and a full scholarship to study with Lillian Watson at the Royal College of Music, London, from where she graduated in July 2009.
Concert engagements have included the St John Passion and Messiah with the Orchestra of St John’s, Handel Chandos Anthems with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre, Handel Ode for Queen Anne’s Birthday with Stephen Cleobury and the Academy of Ancient Music, Mahler Symphony No. 4 with the Oxford Philomusica, Mozart Mass in C Minor at the St Endellion Festival, Pierrot Lunaire at the Pinakothek de Modern, Munich, the Opening Concert at Kings Place Hall with Ian Page and the Classical Opera Company and a Christmas Gala with the Philharmonia Orchestra at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Her broadcasts include a Handel 250th Anniversary Concert with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andreas Spering for RTÉ Lyric fM (broadcast to the EU as part of the Handel celebrations), Handel Chandos Anthems (Polish Radio), Philemon und Baucis (Deutschlandradio Kultur) and In Tune for BBC Radio 3.
Recent engagements have included Silvia / L’isola disabitata (Bonno) with Pablo Heras-Casado at the Festival Internacional de Música Antigua, Madrid, Lucinda / Don Chischiotte in Sierra Morena with Musikwerkstatt Wien, Narcissa / Philemon und Baucis at the Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sansoucci with the Akademie für Alte Musik conducted by Olof Boman, Handel Dixit Dominus at the Göttingen Festival, Messiah with the Philharmonia Orchestra, A Handel Celebration with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Cheltenham Festival, Exploring Handel with the Ten Tors Orchestra, Messiah with Musica Saeculorum (at the Brixner Initiative Musik und Kirche) and at the Fishguard International Festival, and Poulenc Fiançailles pour rire at the Salzburg Mozarteum.
