Paul Carey Jones

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Paul Carey Jones (born Samuel Paul Jones, Cardiff, Wales, 1974) is a baritone opera singer. His father is a journalist, press officer and former Head of Regional Affairs for ITV Wales and his mother is a schoolteacher. He attended Ysgol Gymraeg Melin Gruffydd and Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf. He then studied Physics at The Queen's College, Oxford University, where he was awarded a Styring Exhibition in 1993, but "became increasingly aware that the course of the rest of my life was going to diverge from Physics". After completing a PGCE teacher training course at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, he then returned to Ysgol Glantaf to teach Physics for two years, before resigning in 1998 to study singing at the Royal Academy of Music and then the National Opera Studio in London, supported by Welsh National Opera.

His first operatic roles on leaving the National Opera Studio in 2004 were Osmin in Mozart's Zaïde at the Aldeburgh Festival and Escamillo in Carmen for Stowe Opera. He has since appeared several times for Scottish Opera as well as at the Wexford Festival, Buxton Festival, for Opera East, Bampton Classical Opera, Diva Opera, Lyric Opera Dublin and Second Movement.

Jones has given world premiere performances of works by the composers Stephen McNeff (the oratorio Cities of Dreams to texts by Walt Whitman, William Blake and Rudyard Kipling at the Brangwyn Hall in 2007), Peter Wiegold (his short opera based on the movie Brief Encounter in 2004), Jonathan Owen Clark (his opera Hidden States in Newcastle in 2004) and Richard Elfyn Jones (his oratorio In David's Land at St David's Cathedral in 2006).

As a member of Yehudi Menuhin's Live Music Now! scheme he gave over 200 concerts, mainly in partnership with the pianist Llŷr Williams, with whom he continues to work.