Ian Bostridge CBE (born 25 December 1964) is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera and lieder singer. 　　Bostridge was born in London, the son of Leslie Bostridge and Lillian (née Clark).His father was a chartered surveyor. 　　He was a Queen's scholar at Westminster School. He attended St John's College, Oxford, where he secured a First in modern history and St John's College, Cambridge, where he received an M.Phil in the history and philosophy of science. He was awarded his D.Phil from Oxford in 1990, on the significance of witchcraft in English public life from 1650 to 1750, supervised by Keith Thomas. He worked in television current affairs and documentaries for two years in London before becoming a British Academy post-doctoral fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, teaching political theory and eighteenth-century British history. He became a full-time singer in 1995, aged thirty.