Following an early career in the jazz world, British soprano Helen-Jane Howells trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and the Royal College of Music. She now studies with Jennifer Smith.
Helen-Jane has sung Eve in Jonathan Kent’s production of The Fairy Queen for Glyndebourne Festival Opera and with Les Arts Florissants/William Christie at the Opéra Comique and Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York and Amore L’Incoronazione di Poppea for Glyndebourne on Tour.
In concert she has appeared with The Gabrieli Consort/Paul McCreesh for Messiah, The Academy of Ancient Music/Richard Egarr with Bach Cantatas and Magnificat; Florilegium for Vivaldi, Pergolesi and Purcell and The Bach Choir singing the St Matthew Passion (Radio 3 debut). She has given recitals at the Ryedale and Presteigne Festivals as well as Opéra de Dijon.
Projects for the 11/12 season include a staging by Patrick Kinmonth of the St Matthew Passion with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Suzi Digby as well as singing the work in the Lausanne Festival with The Gabrieli Consort/McCreesh. She also performs Amore in Gluck Orphée et Euridyce with the Spanish National Orchestra/McCreesh and the St John Passion with the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Kraemer. Helen-Jane will contribute to discs of Handel, Vivaldi and Charpentier with La Nuova Musica for Harmonia Mundi USA over the coming seasons.