Jonathan Sells is an international concert and opera singer, artistic director, and conductor. The British-Swiss bass-baritone appears regularly as a soloist in concert venues around the world, leads the baroque collective Solomon's Knot, and is Director of the Monteverdi Choir, whom he regularly conducts together with the English Baroque Soloists.
Sells, whose "superlative singing [is] sonorous and rounded all the way down to his lowest notes, which seem to emanate from the earth’s core" (Gramophone) has performed in some of the world’s most renowned venues, such as Sydney Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and Tonhalle Zurich, with conductors including William Christie, John Eliot Gardiner, Ton Koopman, Roger Norrington, and Frieder Bernius. His appearances on the opera stage include the Teatro Real in Madrid, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Zurich Opera, and he has made over 20 commercial CD recordings as a soloist.
Sells is the founding artistic director of the internationally-acclaimed baroque collective, Solomon's Knot, who appear regularly at top early music festivals and venues in Europe and North America. He is Choir Director of the Monteverdi Choir, conducted them at the Bachfest Leipzig with violinist Isabelle Faust in 2024, and will lead them in two projects at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2025.
education
After studying Music (Master of Arts, double first class honours with distinction) and Musicology (Master of Philosophy) at the University of Cambridge, and Singing (Master of Music) and Opera (Master of Music in Performance) at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (GSMD) in London, Jonathan Sells attended the International Opera Studio at Opernhaus Zurich, where he had the chance to appear on stage with and learn from great artists such as Nina Stemme, Vittorio Grigolo, and Anja Harteros.
awards
Whilst in Zurich, he was awarded the bronze Gottlob Frick Medal, which followed winning the Rose Bowl at the prestigious Gold Medal competition and the Wigmore Hall Recital Price at GSMD. Jonathan also won the Prix Thierry Mermod at the Verbier Festival Academy, where he sang Leporello and studied with Kiri Te Kanawa, Thomas Quasthoff, Claudio Desderi, and Tim Carroll, who became a major influence.
Les Arts Florissants
At the age of 24, Jonathan was selected by William Christie to take part in Le Jardin des Voix, which led to a close relationship with Les Arts Florissants and concert performances across Europe and in New York, as well as productions of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Handel’s L’Allegro at the Palais Garnier in Paris, and Purcell’s Fairy Queen at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Most recently, Sells has performed and recorded Schütz Madrigals and has performed Bach, Graupner & Telemann at the Les Arts Florissants summer festival with Paul Agnew.
John Eliot Gardiner
Jonathan had the privilege to sing for Sir John Eliot Gardiner from 2009-2018, performing everything from Monteverdi to Stravinsky with the English Baroque Soloists, London Symphony Orchestra, and Tonhalle Orchestra in the Berlin Philharmonie, Chapelle Royale de Versailles, Thomaskirche Leipzig, and many more. He features on Sir John Eliot’s recording of Bach’s Mätthaus-Passion from 2016, and has conducted the Monteverdi Choir himself in London, Oxford, Ely, and at the Bachfest Leipzig.
concert
Further inspirational collaborators include John Butt and the Dunedin Consort, I Fagiolini (Monteverdi recordings for Chandos and Decca), the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra under Aapo Häkkinen (Schumann’s Vom Pagen und der Königstochter for Ondine records), Frieder Bernius (2 CD recordings of Zelenka), the Zürcher Kammerorchester, and the composer/pianist Edward Rushton. He has had a close relationship to Britten Pears Arts/Snape Maltings since 2006.
Lieder
Together with pianist Edward Rushton, Jonathan Sells has performed at the Tonhalle Zürich, Berner Liederstunden, Theater Stok and Theater Rigiblick (Zurich), and potentially in your living room as members of ‘Besuch der Lieder: music and poetry at home’. He jumps at the chance to perform art song, having given a full recital at Wigmore Hall, beside appearances at Leeds Lieder, Barbican Hall, Richard Wagner’s house in Tribschen by Luzern, and the Zurich Opera House.
opera
Sells, who sang his first role – the Judge in Sweeney Todd - at the age of 17, loves to immerse himself in the magic of the opera stage. Roles performed include Monteverdi’s Orfeo in Switzerland and Germany, Leporello in Bahrain, Papageno (Oper Schloss Hallwyl), Der Lautsprecher Der Kaiser von Atlantis (Opéra de Dijon), Bartolo and Figaro Il barbiere di Siviglia (IOS Zurich, Oper Schloss Hallwyl), Bottom A Midsummer Night’s Dream (IOS Zurich), Don Alfonso Così fan tutte (cover, Glyndebourne Festival Opera), Zar Zar und Zimmermann, Georgio Germont La Traviata (Wexford Festival Opera short works), and der König Die Kluge (IOS Zurich).
Solomon's Knot
His deep love for music of the 17th and 18th centuries led Jonathan Sells to found what is now Solomon’s Knot, a group that transforms the performance of this music in a way that connects more powerfully with modern audiences and is "little short of miraculous" (The Tablet). As artistic director of the instrumental and vocal collective, he has taken their memorised, conductorless performances of Bach, Gesualdo, Charpentier, Handel, Purcell and others to Wigmore Hall (where they are Baroque Ensemble in Residence), Festival Bach Montréal, BBC Proms, Aldeburgh Festival, Spitalfields Music, Bachfest Leipzig, Halle Händel Festspiele, Bachwoche Ansbach, Regensburger Tage Alter Musik, Thüringer Bachwochen and Helsinki Early Music Festival. Open, flexible and collaborative, they have worked with Spira mirabilis, Mira Calix, Sven Werner, Tim Carroll, Federay Holmes, Les Passions de l'Ame and the Finnish Baroque Orchestra, and are grateful to have been Aldeburgh Music/Snape Maltings Open Space residents.
Solomon's Knot has recorded the music of JS Bach, Kuhnau, Schelle, Telemann, George Jeffreys and an anonymous 17th-century opera for CD and DVD.
conducting
In 2024, Jonathan Sells replaced John Eliot Gardiner as conductor of the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists in a programme of Bach Family Motets and Solo Violin Music in London and at the Bachfest Leipzig, with violinists Kati Debretzeni and Isabelle Faust. He has conducted Bruckner and Gesualdo motets with the Choir, which will be released on the Soli Deo Gloria label in 2025.
Following these projects, Sells was appointed Choir Director and now plays a central role in the Choir's development, conducting concerts and leading their Apprentices programme. He will conduct the Choir and English Baroque Soloists at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2025.
As conductor of the Solomon Choir and Orchestra from 2008 to 2010, Jonathan Sells directed performances of Handel's oratorios Messiah and Solomon, as well as numerous other 18th-century works. He had conducted Beethoven, Prokoffiev, Varèse, Nielsen, and was musical director of Gilbert and Sullivan's Utopia Limited at the Minack Theatre, Cornwall.
He works as a visiting conductor, vocal and language coach with choirs from the UK to the Middle East.
vocal pedagogy and masterclasses
As well as teaching privately at his studio in Bern, Jonathan gives vocal technique, repertoire and conducting masterclasses and lectures, for example at the Hochschule für katholische Kirchenmusik & Musikpädagogik Regensburg, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the University of York and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (UK).
He himself studies singing with Michelle Wegwart.