Grace Davidson

Born on November 29, 1977, in London, England, Grace Davidson is an acclaimed soprano who specializes in early music including Renaissance and Baroque. Initially, she began studying the piano, violin, and viola before switching to voice when she attended Guildhall School in London. Her big break came when she successfully auditioned at the Royal Academy of Music, London, which allowed her to study with Beatrice Unsworth and Jonathan Papp for a season. While attending the Royal Academy of Music, Grace Davidson won the Early Music Prize and was a finalist at both the English Song Competition and the London Handel Singing Competition. Graduating in 2004 with a musical baccalaureate, she began collaborating with several other early music artists including Simon Jeff’s, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Stephen Layton, John Eliot Gardiner and Andrew Manze. She also regularly collaborated with husband Nigel Short's Tenebrae ensembles and Harry Christophers’ The Sixteen. She became a popular addition to many choirs and consorts, appearing on albums such as Handel: Stabat Mater (2009), Great British Choral Works (2011), Fauré: Requiem - Bach: Partita, Chorales & Ciaconna (2012), Handel: Jephta (2014), Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610 (2014), Poetry in Music (2015) and Handel: Acis and Galatea (2019). In 2015, composer and pianist Max Richter chose Grace Davidson as the singer on his eight-hour opus Sleep, which had its premiere on BBC Radio 3 that September. She became an in-demand vocalist, working with many film composers including Rupert Gregson-Williams, Henry Jackman, James Newton Howard, Michael Giacchino, Thomas Newman and Hans Zimmer. She also branched out into different genres, collaborating with a variety of artists including The Good, the Bad & the Queen, Karl Jenkins, Susan Boyle, Eric Whitacre, Nightwish, Craig Armstrong, David Arnold, Ozzy Osbourne, Joep Beving, and French pop / rock icon Johnny Hallyday. Grace Davidson has also released several solo albums including A Portrait (2007), Vivaldi & Handel (2018), Dowland: First Booke of Songes & Ayres (2018), Grace (2021) and Hildegard von Bingen: Sacred Chants (2022).