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Christopher Watson is a British tenor specialising in Early music, Baroque, and Contemporary repertoire.
Born in Leamington Spa on 10 January 1969, and raised in Canterbury, Kent in England, Watson studied tuba before reading music at the University of Exeter. Having sung in and directed Exeter University Chapel Choir, and a spell as a choral scholar at Exeter Cathedral, he went on to hold positions as lay clerk at Durham Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and Westminster Cathedral.
Watson became Director of Music of the Choir of Trinity College, University of Melbourne in January 2017. [1] Prior to this, while based in Europe, he sang as a soloist and as a consort singer with The Tallis Scholars, with whom he made over 500 appearances, and with Alamire, Gallicantus and Collegium Vocale Gent. [2] He also performed regularly with Tenebrae and Theatre of Voices, among others. His conducting work included the Oxford-based chamber choir Sospiri, the chapel choir of St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
In concert he has performed, among others, the role of the Evangelist in the settings of The Passion by J.S. Bach, most recently at Christ Church Oxford, Durham, Canterbury and Manchester Cathedrals, as well as the Christmas Oratorio and the Mass in B Minor. He has presented the World Premières of David Lang’s Pulitzer-winning Little Match Girl Passion at Carnegie Hall, and The Stones of the Arch by Gavin Bryars with the Kronos Quartet. With Theatre of Voices he has given performances of Stockhausen’s Stimmung, and with them has recorded Luciano Berio’s A Ronne and Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater. As a recitalist, he has also performed 20th Century Art song, including songs by Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi and Peter Warlock. [3]
His discography includes, for Harmonia Mundi, Arvo Pärt's Creator Spiritus and a Grammy-winning recording of David Lang’s Little Match Girl Passion with Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices. For Gimell he has recorded Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli and Victoria's Lamentations of Jeremiah with The Tallis Scholars.
Sir Stephen John Cleobury was an English organist and music director. He worked with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, where he served as music director from 1982 to 2019, and with the BBC Singers.
Sir David Valentine Willcocks, was a British choral conductor, organist, composer and music administrator. He was particularly well known for his association with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, which he directed from 1957 to 1974, making frequent broadcasts and recordings. Several of the descants and carol arrangements he wrote for the annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols were published in the series of books Carols for Choirs which he edited along with Reginald Jacques and John Rutter. He was also director of the Royal College of Music in London.
SATB is an initialism that describes the scoring of compositions for choirs or consorts of instruments. The initials are for the voice types: S for soprano, A for alto, T for tenor and B for bass.
The Sixteen are a United Kingdom-based choir and period instrument orchestra; founded by Harry Christophers, they started as an unnamed group of sixteen friends in 1977, giving their first billed concert in 1979.
Hilliard Ensemble was a British male vocal quartet originally devoted to the performance of early music. The group was named after the Elizabethan miniaturist painter Nicholas Hilliard. Founded in 1974, the group disbanded in 2014.
David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. Co-founder of the musical collective Bang on a Can, he was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion, which went on to win a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance by Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices. Lang was nominated for an Academy Award for "Simple Song #3" from the film Youth.
David Thomas is an English classical bass singer, performing mostly in concert. He has performed internationally at notable concert halls and festivals.
The Tallis Scholars is a British professional early music vocal ensemble established in 1973. Normally consisting of two singers per part, with a core group of ten singers, they specialise in performing a cappella sacred vocal music. The founder and conductor is Peter Phillips. The group has released over 60 discs through its own label, Gimell Records. In 2013 they were elected to the Gramophone Hall of Fame. In 2023, to mark the group's 50th anniversary, Gramophone published a special edition of its magazine, dedicated to The Tallis Scholars.
Paul Douglas Hillier OBE is an English conductor, music director and baritone. He specializes in both early and contemporary classical music, especially that by composers Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt. He was a co-founder of the Hilliard Ensemble as well Theatre of Voices, and directed the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir for many years. He has been Chief Conductor of Ars Nova (Copenhagen) (2003-2023), and Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of Chamber Choir Ireland since 2008.
Theatre of Voices is a vocal ensemble founded by baritone Paul Hillier in 1990; it focuses on early music and new music.
Paul Agnew is a Scottish operatic tenor and conductor.
Stephen David Layton is an English conductor.
Peter Phillips is a British choral conductor and musicologist. He is the founder of the Tallis Scholars as well as Gimell Records. He has been the owner of the Musical Times since 1995.
Bath Bach Choir, formerly The City of Bath Bach Choir (CBBC), is based in Bath, Somerset, England, and is a registered charity. Founded in 1946 by Cuthbert Bates, who also became a founding father of the Bath Bach Festival in 1950, the choir's original aim was to promote the music of Johann Sebastian Bach via periodic music festivals. Bates – an amateur musician with a great love and understanding of this composer's works – was also the CBBC's principal conductor and continued in this role until his sudden death, in April 1980. This untimely exit pre-empted his planned retirement concert performance of J. S. Bach's Mass in B minor, scheduled for July of the same year, and effectively ended the first period of the choir's history.
Rogers Henry Lewis Covey-Crump is an English tenor noted for his performances in both early music and contemporary classical music. He has sometimes been identified as an haute-contre tenor. He has performed for over 50 years in choirs and ensembles such as the Hilliard Ensemble, and as a soloist. He has been especially in demand for the part of the Evangelist in Bach's St Matthew Passion and St John Passion. He also specialises in vocal tuning, and has written articles on the subject.
Arvo Pärt's Nunc dimittis is a setting of the Latin canticle Nunc dimittis for mixed choir a cappella, written in 2001. It was published by Universal Edition.
Robin Tyson is an English countertenor who has a well documented career in opera, solo, and a cappella. He now works in the music management industry.
Caroline Trevor is an English contralto, focused on early music and Baroque music in historically informed performance. She has been one of two alto voices in the award-winning ensemble The Tallis Scholars since 1982.
Harvey Brough is an English tenor, instrumentalist, composer, producer and arranger. Starting at the age of six as a chorister at Coventry Cathedral, and achieving greatest prominence as founder, leader, musical director and producer of Harvey and the Wallbangers, he has worked in a wide range of musical genres including classical, early music, pop and soul, jazz, folk and world music.
David Hurley is a British countertenor who sang with The King's Singers from 1990 to 2016.