Biography
Ruth Jenkins grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne and graduated in Land Economy from the University of Cambridge in 2008. She was taught by David Lowe and sang with Jesus College Chapel Choir under Dan Hyde, with whom she recorded the NAXOS Charles Wood St. Mark Passion. She gave several principle performances with the Cambridge University Opera Society.
Ruth is currently studying with Lillian Watson and Audrey Hyland on the Opera Course at the Royal Academy of Music. She has performed Fiordiligi in Mozart Così fan tutte and Zhou in the world premiere of Peter Maxwell Davies Kommilitonen! with Royal Academy Opera. Her Opera Scenes with the Royal Academy include Cleopatra in Handel Giulio Cesare, Susanna inMozart Le Nozze di Figaro, Fox in Janáček The Cunning Little Vixen, Nero inMonteverdi L'incoronazione di Poppea and Zdenka inStrauss Arabella. Other opera roles include Donna Anna in Mozart Don Giovanni, Gretel in Humperdinck Hansel and Gretel and Tiresias in Poulenc Les Mamelles di Tiresias.
Ruth is a Bach Kohn Scholar for the RAM/Kohn Foundation Bach Cantata Series and is a member of the prestigious Royal Academy of Music Song Circle, through which she made her debuts at King’s Place and the Wigmore Hall. She won the Pavarotti Prize 2011, won the Dame Eva Turner Operatic Award 2010, won first prize in the Jackdaw Vocal Awards 2010 at the Wigmore Hall, is the Leith Hill Festival Award Winner 2010, came second in the Clonter Opera Prize 2011, was a prize winner in the AESS Courtney Kenny English Song Competition and was a finalist in both the Richard Lewis Competition and the Nancy Nuttall Early Music Prize. She has undertaken masterclasses with Angelika Kirchschlager, Robert Tear, Barbara Bonney and Dame Ann Murray.
Performances include Papagena in Mozart The Magic Flute with Garsington Opera; Handel Messiah with Brian Kay at the Royal Albert Hall; The Cholmondeley Castle Proms Fireworks Concert with the Manchester Camerata, The RAM/Kohn Society Bach Cantata Series, The London English Song Festival on BBC Radio 3 In Tune and at The Forge Camden, A Tribute in Song to Clara Taylor with RAM Song Circle at the Wigmore Hall; Britten On This Island with William Vann for the Lennox Berkeley Society; Haydn Nelson Mass with the London Bach Choir at St. John’s Smith Square; Monteverdi Pur ti miro (L’Incoronazione di Poppea) with the Borealis Theatre; Valentine’s Concert with RAM Song Circle at the Wigmore Hall, Sunday For Sammy at Newcastle City Hall; Mendelssohn Lieder with RAM Song Circle at King’s Place; Mozart Exsultate Jubilate at Chichester Cathedral; Britten Les Illuminations with David Strange and the Royal Academy of Music String Orchestra; Bach Cantata 186 with members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Gentlemen of St. Johns Cambridge; Tavener The Bridegroom for the Deloitte Ignite Festival of Art at the Paul Hamyln Hall, Royal Opera House; Mozart Mass in C Minor with Stephen Cleobury at King’s College Chapel Cambridge; Bach B Minor Mass with the Brandenburg Sinfonia at St. Martin in the Fields; Premier of Zou Jianping Symphonic Poem with the City of London Sinfonia; Vivaldi Gloria with Stephen Cleobury, Florilegium and the Choir of King’s College Cambridge at St. David’s Hall Cardiff; A Musical Evening with Sir Thomas Allen and Malcolm Martineau at Auckland Castle.
Ruth’s future engagements include Königin der Nacht in Mozart Die Zauberflöte with Royal Academy Opera, Song Circle at the Wigmore Hall and the RAM/Kohn Society Bach Cantata Series.
Ruth is generously supported by the RAM Warne Award, the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, The Tillett Trust, The Colin Keer Foundation, the Josephine Baker Trust, the Sammy Johnson Memorial Fund and the Simon Fletcher Charitable Trust.
