Mezzo Soprano
Deborah Miles-Johnson comes from a musical family in London. Her grandmother sang under Gustav Holst at St Paul’s Girls’ School and her brother played piano duets with him in a cellar during the Air Raids of WW2.
Deborah has had a wide-ranging career following flute and piano studies at the Royal College of Music. But one of her first and the most exciting experiences of choral singing was recording Stravinsky’s Les Noces with Leonard Bernstein and the young Martha Argerich as one of pianists!
Soloist
Amongst many solo performances was Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the English Concert under Trevor Pinnock in concerts around Europe, Istanbul and Japan.
Commercial recordings include the role of Betty Doxy in the Britten/Gay arrangement of The Beggars Opera, the alto solo in Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater and the Missa Brevis in D and B flat by Mozart for Naxos.
Agnus Dei from Missa Brevis in D by Mozart
Opera
She has now worked with many more of the world’s leading conductors: both Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Andrew Davis performing Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles and Sir Antonio Pappano at the Royal Opera House. She recorded an excerpt from Carmen with Gerald Finlay and was also one of the two converse in the EMI recording of Puccini’s Suor Angelica.
She also sang regularly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as a member of the Extra Chorus from 1999 in Die Meistersinger (Wagner), finally performing Samson et Dalila (Saint-Saëns) in 2026.
Other productions include Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti), Tannhäuser (Wagner), The Nose (Shostakovich), Puccini’s Turandot and Andrea Chènier (Giordano)
Another highlight was the lead role in Handel’s Il Parnasso in Festa, learnt in 3 days and broadcast by the BBC.
Final aria from Il Parnasso in Festa by Handel
She also performed Walton’s The Bear at The Bridewell in London with Jeremy White and Robert Torday.
Excerpt from The Bear by Walton
Nobles Seigneurs from Les Hugenots by Meyerbeer
Contemporary works
Active in the contemporary repertoire, she was one of the Secretaries in the first London performance of Nixon in China (John Adams) with the LSO at the Barbican. She made her Wigmore Hall debut performing Upon Silence by George Benjamin with the viol group Fretwork following performances in Geneva.
Deborah was frequently called upon to perform at very short notice – all pretty scary experiences! She gave the first performance of …au dela du hasard (Jean Barraqué) with Klangforum in Vienna – both for broadcast and a commercial recording and Brian Elias’ Laments under Tadaaki Otaka with BBCSO in Cheltenham.
Laments by Brian Elias
Choral
After a seminal experience in Choral Class at RCM, singing in the chorus of Bach’s B minor mass, she became a singer which led to engagements with The Sixteen, The Tallis Scholars and other consort ensembles. Ten years as a staff member of the BBC Singers saw her performing a wide range of solos for BBC Radio 3.
Film
Her diverse musical life includes performing on the sound track of many of the major films of recent years; including The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Shrek and Pirates of the Caribbean.