Catching up with the globetrotting countertenor whose chart topping recordings are going off down under.

Iestyn Davies may not have been to Australia as yet, but mentioning that I’ll be speaking to him produces impressively positive responses. From the hungry look in the eyes of certain Festival directors and prospective concert programmers the 34-year-old British countertenor is clearly in the sights of several.

I’m catching up with him on the phone from New York where he’s recovering from the launch party for his new Dowland CD on Hyperion. “These friends of mine have this amazing apartment,” he tells me. “They have a sort of concert hall for a living room and as record companies don’t tend to do launch parties anymore I thought I’d do my own. We had about 70 people here last night. It was a joint launch with a friend of mine’s birthday. We sang a bit and we got free CDs!” The Dowland disc forms part of an enviable and exciting body of recent work, including his Handel Oratorio Arias disc with the King’s Consort and his Wigmore Hall recital recordings.

Recording Handel with the King’s Consort

Davies is one of the exciting new breed...