Alumnus Joel Williams recently featured in Independent School Parent. Now a professional musician, he talks about singing from his balcony in Valencia during the pandemic.
A member of the Centre de Perfeccionament del Palau de les Arts in Valencia, he arrived in Spain with only a smattering of the language.
He says: “I was singing in Rossini’s Viaggio a Reims when the Covid-19 outbreak took hold and resorted to practising at home. Fortunately, my neighbours were delighted when I took to my balcony to perform. I sang about 60 nights in a row and recordings of my performances were on Spanish television and ITN.”
Described by Opera Magazine as a singer ‘with flair, his tenor simultaneously caressing and resilient’, Joel Williams is a graduate of the Royal College of Music International Opera Studio where he was the Kiri te Kanawa Scholar. He made his operatic debuts at the Royal Opera House, English National Opera and Glyndebourne as a boy treble with Trinity Boys Choir, before going on to take up a Choral Scholarship King’s College, Cambridge, where he studied for a degree in History.
Joel is also set to be featured in a September issue of the print magazine. Watch this space!
"It’s been a steep learning curve, both in terms of languages and technique, studying under the great Rossini specialist Raúl Giménez."
Tenor Joel Williams
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