By Hannah Nepilova

Published: Friday, 01 December 2023 at 14:13 PM


Between the great British singers of the past and those of the present, compiling a list of the 11 best British singers of all time has been a tough ask. See what you think of our choices, and whether you would make any additions.

Greatest British singers

Janet Baker

Now aged 90, Janet Baker is widely respected as singing royalty: someone who, over the course of her 30 year career, consistently won over audiences with her dramatic intensity. Hers, however, was not a typical start.

Born in Yorkshire to a far from wealthy family, she never had a formal musical education: her earliest musical experience was watching her father perform in the Police Choir. She left school to work in a bank, transferring to a London branch when she was 20 years old. In her spare time, though, she loved to sing, and after singing a small solo in a performance of Haydn’s Nelson Mass with the Leeds Philharmonic Choir, Ilse Wolf, whom Baker sang alongside, gave her the contact details of a singing teacher in London.

That teacher was Helene Isepp, who played a huge part in ripening Baker’s voice: in 1956, she won second prize in the Kathleen Ferrier competition, which allowed her to pursue her dream of performing on the bigger stage. She went on to sing all over the world and embrace a huge range of repertoire, although it was with baroque and early Italian opera and the works of Benjamin Britten that she was most closely associated. She retired in 1989.