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The Englishsoprano, Helen Parker, grew up singing in the Enfield Salvation Army. She won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music where she studied for five years with Patricia Clark. Since graduating in 1990 she has worked extensively as a soloist and currently (as of 1998) studies with David Pollard.
Helen Parker has performed at the festivals of St Endellion, City of London, Spitalfields and The Gower, Swansea. HeR work as a soprano soloist has included Alphise in Rameau’s Les Boréades with Sir Simon Rattle at the Salzburg Festival. For Richard Hickox she has sung First Lady in W.A. Mozart's Magic Flute, First Niece in Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Carissimi's Jepthe, Handel's Dixit Dominus, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Come ye Sons of Art, J.S. Bach's Magnificat (BWV 243) and, in the Sheldonian Theatre Oxford, George Frideric Handel's Messiah. With Philip Pickett and the New London Consort she has performed concerts of Purcell's Odes both in Rome and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, J.S. Bach's B Minor Mass (BWV 232) in London, Spain, Italy and New Zealand, Locke's Psyche, a medieval Carmina Burana at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin and, as her Queen Elizabeth Hall debut as Ingrate in Monteverdi's Combattimento. She has performed Rossini's Stabat Mater with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under David Hill, a concert of Mozart and Haydn with the City of London Sinfonia and has been a guest with the Northern Sinfonia on several occasions, most notably to sing the solo J.S. Bach's Cantata Jauchzet Gott (BWV 51). She has appeared frequently with The Tallis Scholars (Director: Peter Phillips) and toured abroad with the Scholars Baroque Ensemble as a soloist in G.F.Handel's Messiah and Purcell's The Fairy Queen, which she has also performed with the Gabrieli Consort. She has also appeared with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. On BBC Radio 3 she has sung the part of Iris in Eccles' Semele with Richard Hickox and Collegium Musicum 90 and also Caio in Antonio Vivaldi's Ottone in Villa from the Royal College of Music.
Helen Parker has recorded Purcell’s The Fairy Queen and G.F. Handel's Messiah with the Scholars Baroque Ensemble (Naxos), Monteverdis Combattimento and Locke’s Psyche with the New London Consort (Decca), , a live performance of G.F. Handel's Samson with Altra Voce from Belgium, Allegri’s Miserere with the Westminster Abbey Choir (Sony), Purcell’s The Indian Queen with the Academy of Ancient Music (Decca), pieces by Percy Grainger under Richard Hickox (Chandos), and several discs on Shakespearean themes, including Thomas Linley's Shakespeare Ode with Philip Pickett and the Musicians of the Globe (Philips).
Helen Parker also works in companies using singing as a team-building exercise, runs a community choir and teaches in two of the country’s leading private schools. She lives in Oxford with her husband and two lovely children. |
