Schubert & Vaughan Williams Recitals / Winchester Chamber Music Festival 

​

"Gilchrist’s performance was so utterly compelling that there was no question of relaxing. With Huw Watkins an attentive accompanist, Gilchrist inhabited each song, expressing its essence not only with his voice but with his whole body. There was no hint of self-conscious theatre about this; it sprang from his own response to Schubert and Muller, fused with a natural impulse to communicate each song, to get it across to us, as totally as possible. [...] Gilchrist’s singing was always beautiful, with a richly baritonal lower register deepening its expressive reach. [...]
 

One of the most engaging things about James Gilchrist is the connection he forges with his audience, not least in his care to introduce the music he is about to sing and to help us to understand its meaning. This was equally clear the following afternoon when he performed more Schubert – his extended song 'Auf dem Strom', with Huw Watkins (piano) and Tim Posner (cello). They made this wonderful song a moving experience, a meditation on loss and time, borne along on rippling piano figurations as familiar places, with their memories of life and love, slip inexorably behind.
 

[...] Gilchrist held this balance with consummate sensitivity and art, the scales tipping ever so slightly, and rightly, towards the warmth of human feeling. There was powerful drama in 'Is My Team Ploughing?'; 'In Summertime on Bredon' was heartbreakingly done, from those glassy string chords – so clearly Ravel-inspired, and yet so clearly the sound of an English summer – to its dark conclusion."

Chris Kettle, Seen and Heard International (May 2023)

Recital (with Joseph Middleton) / Leeds Lieder 

”James Gilchrist is the ideal singer for this music, given his forthright, passionate style and his instinctive feeling for the language; in the first song, ‘Auf dem Hügel sitz ich spähend’ the word ‘Seufzer’ (sighs) was given the perfect onomatopoeic emphasis, and the fifth, ‘Es kehret der Maien’ conveyed all the heady excitement of Springtime [...] This was a performance of true partnership, with the dramatic moments startlingly powerful and the tender ones beautifully phrased"

Melanie Eskenazi, MusicOMH (Oct 2022)

Bach MASS IN B MINOR  / Philharmonia Baroque

”In Philharmonia Baroque’s performance of the B-minor Mass, several sections stood out as particularly stunning. The Domine Deus section in the Gloria was beautifully sung by soprano Mary Bevan and tenor James Gilchrist, who were gorgeously accompanied by flutists Stephen Schultz and Lars Johanesson."

James Roy MacBean, The Berkeley Daily Planet (Feb 2022)

​

Recital: Divine Love and Earthly Passions / National Centre for Early Music, York

”James Gilchrist gave both songs the kind of committed performance we’ve come to expect from him, with ‘Ständchen’ in particular sounding very appropriate when sung to the background of the guitar, creating a real sense of a hopeless serenade."

Melanie Eskenazi, Music OMH (Dec 2021)

SOLITUDE [Chandos Records]

”Gilchrist is, as ever, a hugely clear and communicative singer, in perfect balance with Tilbrook’s sense of focus and poise"

Erica Jeal, The Guardian (July 2020)
 

“James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook offer an interpretation that combines refinement and simplicity.”
 

“James Gilchrist details the text with finesse and refinement.”
Pierre Degott, ResMusica (July 2020)

"Equally compelling is Solitude (Chandos) by James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook, a well-established and ever brilliant tenor-piano duo: in addition to Schubert, Barber and Purcell (arr. Britten), Jonathan Dove’s cycle Under Alter’d Skies, a restless and beguiling setting of Tennyson, is the rewarding centrepiece."
Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian (July 2020)
 

​

Bach ST JOHN PASSION / Bach Collegium Japan

“At the centre of it all, figuratively and literally, was tenor James Gilchrist as the narrating Evangelist, sweet-sounding yet compellingly direct as both storyteller and preacher – one with his feet on the ground, not in the pulpit.

Erica Jeal, The Guardian (March 2020)

​

"James Gilchrist's Evangelist is admirable, spontaneous and recited in a rich voice and at ease throughout the range. He tells us about these tragic events with a well-balanced mixture of compassion and distance: involved and convincing but without resorting to harshness or excess of “pathos”."
Xavier Rivera, Crescendo Magazine - review of CD recording (Dec 2020)

​

​

Leeds Lieder Charity Concert / Wigmore Hall

“James Gilchrist showed once again that he has few equals amongst tenors with a beautifully expressive performance of Quilter’s ‘Fear no more the heat of the sun.’’

Melanie Eskenazi, MusicOHM (June 2019)

​

​

Bach ST MATTHEW PASSION / Tafelmusik & Masaaki Suzuki

​

“I was especially entranced watching James Gilchrist, our Evangelist. The role of the Evangelist is enormous, and includes several distinct sorts of singing. At times Gilchrist is telling the story quickly in a very light declamatory recitative, soaring at times to the top of his range. I just pulled out my score, there’s at least one high B, perhaps it even goes higher? Now add in the fact that he’s not just singing but telling the story. Yet that’s the least of it. He’s involved in this story, the way a prophet would be involved in such a report, virtually preaching.  No that’s not the way some people sing it, but Gilchrist isn’t most people.  There are also arias, sometimes sung very sweetly, sometimes in a fiercely dramatic style. Gilchrist was perfectly in tune all night, clearly articulating his text, but most importantly offering genuine ministry in telling Jesus’s story in this musical form. And (as I mentioned) when he wasn’t singing he was absorbed in the music-making all around him.”

Leslie Barcza, barczablog (March 2019)

​

​

Purcell KING ARTHUR / Gabrieli Consort & Players

“Tenor James Gilchrist made a sturdy yet smooth-edged delight out of How blest are shepherds”

Clive O’Connell, The Syndey Morning Herald (February 2019)

“A beaming James Gilchrist, whose tenor has a delightfully pure tone, even got horizontal on the stage as a snoozing shepherd”

Patricia Maunder, Limelight Magazine (February 2019)