Natalie Clifton-Griffith
Natalie Clifton-Griffith, soprano, was born in Cornwall and studied at The Birmingham Conservatoire and The Royal College of Music. She was a prize winner at Great Elm and The First London Handel Festival Singing Competition (2002).
Highlights of her solo career include Bach’s Magnificat (Barbican Hall, ECO), St John Passion (Three Choirs Festival) and Cantata 82a (Hanover Band), Mass in B Minor (Lyon Early Music Festival), Cantata 209 Non sa che sia dolore (Purcell Room and CBSO centre), and Handel’s Messiah at most major cathedrals in England, Apollo e Dafne and Alexander Balus (London Handel Festival) Gloria and Laudate Pueri (Welsh Baroque Orchestra). Classical repertoire includes Haydn’s Creation (Bath Abbey), Nelson Mass (Lichfield Cathedral), Missa Sancti Nicholai, Salve Regina and Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate( CBSO Symphony Hall and English Haydn Festival) and Mass in C Minor (ECO).
Natalie appears regularly as a soloist with The English Concert (Biber Missa Christi Resurgentis, Handel’s Dixit Dominus QEH, Bath Festival, Schutz Christmas Story -Angel and Vivaldi’s Gloria) and Ex Cathedra on CD and concerts including Lalande’s Dies Irae (BBC Proms), Handel’s Solomon and Purcell’s Fairy Queen (Symphony Hall).Also with CBSO Baroque Ensemble, Armonico Tributo , and Capilla Cayrasco (Madrid and The Canary Islands).
Other concert engagements have included Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (CBSO), Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music Three Choirs Festival, Canteloube’s Chants D’Auvergne, Villa Lobos Bachianas Brazilieras V, Paul Spicer’s Easter Oratorio (ESO) and Advent Oratorio, John Joubert’s Wings of Faith (CBSO) Orff’s Carmina Burana (Birmingham Royal Ballet, English Symphony Orchestra) Patrick Hawes’s Song of songs and Mater Gloriosa in Mahler’s Symphony No.8 (Symphony Hall). Natalie also performs with consort vocal groups such as Ex Cathedra, Tenebrae ,I Faggiolini ,Exaudi, The Sixteen and The BBC Singers.
Operatic roles include The Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute) Timea (La Liberta Contenta), Venus (Venus and Adonis), Despina (Cosi fan Tutte), and Princesse (L’Enfant et les Sortilleges).
Natalie has recorded for EMI Classics (Rodrigo), Hyperion (De Lalande, Charpentier and three discs of South American Baroque music), Archiv (Biber), Signum records (Poulenc) and Lammas (Karg-Elert with the Gough Duo) She also appears on Ex Cathedra’s live recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passionand featured in Early Music News’-‘Rising Stars’.
Forthcoming Solo engagements include Bach’s St Matthew Passion ( Hereford Cathedral) Handel’s Jephtha, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Purcell Hail Bright Cecilia (OAE ) Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music, Patrick Hawes Song of Songs (Winchester Cathedral), and Bach’s Magnificat ( The English Concert)