Jessica Dandy studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she held a fellowship and graduated with distinction. She was the winner of the London Bach Society Singers Prize 2017 and Oxford Lieder Young Artist 2018. She currently studies with Gary Coward.
A Britten-Pears Young Artist and Heidelberger Frühling Scholar, she has performed at 22 Mansfield Street, Holywell Music Room, Wigmore Hall, Barbican Hall, Pierre Boulez Saal and Heidelberg Stadthalle.
Jess is also co-founder with mezzo-soprano, Joanna Harries of Song Path, a walking concert series, founded to promote walking and music-making in the context of mental health and raising funds for Mind UK. To this end, she is the recipient of the Royal Overseas League Roderick Lakin Memorial Scholarship.
Opera highlights include two Royal Opera House workshops on new works by Datta/Glynn Maxwell and Philip Venables 4.48 Psychosis. Jess also covered the role of the Messenger and was a member of the ensemble in the Royal Opera House/Roundhouse production of Monteverdi Orfeo with director Michael Boyd and conductor Christopher Moulds and played the multi-part contralto role in Jack Furness’ production of Into the Little Hill for Shadwell Opera with Finnegan Downie Dear conducting.
On the concert platform appearances include Mozart Requiem at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Berlioz Roméo et Juliette at the Barbican and Salle Pleyel with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev, Andriessen De Staat at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with Simon Wills and Reich Music for the BBC Proms Multi-Story with Christopher Stark. Jess is also an experienced ensemble singer with the Monteverdi Choir, The King’s Consort, Le Concert d’Astrée, Polyphony, the Gabrieli Consort and Philharmonia Voices.
Recent engagements include a recording of Handel’s Samson (Micah) with John Butt and the Dunedin Consort, alto solos in their performances of Bach’s B Minor Mass at The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh and Wigmore Hall, Mozart Coronation Mass and Haydn Mass in Time of War with Chanctonbury Chorus, and her festival debut at Ulverston International Music Festival. Future engagements include Stanford’s Mass Via Victrix with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and alto solos in the St John Passion with Stephen Layton and the Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras. Upcoming recitals include St James’s Piccadilly, the Oxford Lieder Festival and Aberystwyth Arts Centre with Dylan Perez.
Pianist Dylan Perez is a highly sought after recitalist, chamber musician, and coach specialising in vocal repertoire. He graduated in 2016 with Distinction from the Artist Masters programme at the Guildhall School where he studied with Pamela Lidiard and Julius Drake. Prior to relocating to London, he studied at the University of Michigan with Louis Nagel and Martin Katz.
Dylan recently won the Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform with duo partner Jess Dandy. He has also been awarded the Gerald Moore Prize for accompanists and the Paul Hamburger Prize for Accompaniment in association with a performance of Die schöne Müllerin, directed by Graham Johnson.
In April 2016, he was a finalist in the Kathleen Ferrier awards at Wigmore Hall where he, along with his duo partner mezzo soprano Bianca Andrew, received the Loveday Song Prize. He was a finalist in the competition again in 2017, and performed with Francesca Chiejina, Daniel Shelvey, and Eduard Mas Bacardit.
Along with duo partner Iúnó Connolly, Dylan was a semi-finalist in the 2017 Das Lied International Song Competition in Heidelberg, Germany.
He has performed alongside the Prince Consort at the Wigmore Hall, playing Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzer and Stephen Hough’s Other Love Songs.
Dylan has performed in Pre-LSO concerts at the Barbican Hall and was featured in a BBC Proms Extra concert, broadcast live on Radio 3 from Imperial College. Recently, he was featured on a Radio 3 recital, performing songs by Richard Rodney Bennett with baritone Benson Wilson.
He is an alumnus of the Franz-Schubert-Institut in Baden bei Wien, Austria, where he performed in masterclasses for Julius Drake, Rudolf Jansen, Helmut Deutsch, and Elly Ameling. Dylan is also a Britten-Pears Young Artist and studied there with Christoph Pregardien, Julius Drake, and Richard Stokes.
Dylan is the founder of re-sung, a London based song recital series that focuses on the connection between text and music, with special interest on creating new interpretations of masterworks and championing contemporary song.
He has attended SongFest on the Martin Katz Fellowship and the Aspen Music Festival as a student of Ann Schein. He was a participant in The Song Continues masterclass series at Carnegie Hall with Marilyn Horne, Jessye Norman, and Dalton Baldwin, and was subsequently invited to be a pianist for their residency in Paris.
Dylan has also played in masterclasses with Renee Fleming, Joyce DiDonato, Dame Felicity Lott, and with Roger Vignoles, Brigitte Fassbaender, and Christian Gerhaher at Wigmore Hall.
Passionate about the voice, Dylan is closely associated with Prof. Janice Chapman at the Guildhall School where he plays for her lessons, learns about the mechanics of vocal technique, and amasses vast knowledge for coaching young and mature singers.
He continues on the Artist Diploma course at the Guildhall School and studies with Eugene Asti, Andrew West, and Iain Burnside. Dylan is grateful for the support of the Norman Gee Foundation and the Guildhall School Trust.
Free recital (retiring collection)