Quentin H. Poole (born 1957) [1] is an English oboist, conductor and former boy chorister, who served as Head Chorister of King's College, Cambridge. [2]
Poole was born in Surrey, England, the son of Joseph W. Poole and Esme B. Mounsey Poole, [3] but he grew up, as the youngest of five children, at Coventry, where his father was Precentor of Coventry Cathedral. [4] He learned piano from the age of seven and trained under Sir David Willcocks at King's College, [5] where he joined the choir aged nine. [4] He also took up the flute there. [4] He subsequently sang in the choir of The King's School, Canterbury, [4] and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra. [5]
He studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and then at the Royal Academy of Music under Janet Craxton. [5]
Poole was a founder, member and oboist of the Endymion Ensemble and later its conductor. [5] He was also principal oboe for the City of London Sinfonia and other orchestras and chamber groups. [5] He was Director of Music of the Purcell School from 2001, [5] from which he was made redundant in 2013. [6] He was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2004. [5]
He appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 26 December 1970. [4] He was 13 at the time; the programme's youngest guest. [4] His picture was published in a contemporary issue of the Radio Times . [4]
The War Requiem, Op. 66, is a large-scale setting of the Requiem composed by Benjamin Britten mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. The War Requiem was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid. The traditional Latin texts are interspersed, in telling juxtaposition, with extra-liturgical poems by Wilfred Owen, written during World War I.
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.
The BBC Symphony Chorus is a British amateur chorus based in London. It is the dedicated chorus for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, though it performs with other national and international orchestras.
The Purcell School for Young Musicians is a specialist music school for children, located in the town of Bushey, south Hertfordshire, England, and is the oldest specialist music school in the UK. The school was awarded the UNESCO Mozart Medal in 2003, which was received on behalf of the school by Prince Charles, who is a patron of the school. Sir Simon Rattle is honorary president of the school. Many of the pupils subsequently study at top conservatories across the country including: the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 2015, the School became the first Fazioli Pianoforti Centre of Excellence.
The Choir of King's College, Cambridge is an English choir. It is considered one of today's most accomplished and renowned representatives of the great English choral tradition. It was created by King Henry VI, who founded King's College, Cambridge, in 1441, to provide daily singing in his Chapel, which remains the main task of the choir to this day.
George Guest CBE FRCO was a Welsh organist and choral conductor.
Guy Johnston is a British cellist and the winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year award in 2000. He has subsequently enjoyed a successful international career as a soloist and chamber musician and currently serves as an Associate Professor of Cello at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester New York.
Howard Gordon Shelley is a British pianist and conductor. He was educated at Highgate School and the Royal College of Music. He is married to fellow pianist Hilary Macnamara, with whom he has performed and recorded in a two-piano partnership, and they have two sons.
Andrew Nethsingha, FRCO, ARCM is an English choral conductor and organist, the son of Lucian Nethsingha also a cathedral organist. He is the Director of Music at St John's College, Cambridge, where he was previously the Organ Scholar. He was also the President of the Cathedral Organists' Association. He has performed in the UK, North America, South Africa, China and many European countries.
Charles Daniels is an English tenor, particularly noted for his performances of baroque music. He is a frequent soloist with The King's Consort, and has made over 25 recordings with the ensemble on the Hyperion label.
The King's Consort is a British period music orchestra founded in 1980 by the English conductor and harpsichordist Robert King. The ensemble has an associated choral group, Choir of The King's Consort. Together, they have made over 90 recordings, largely on the Hyperion label, and sold over 1,000,000 discs. The orchestra performs concert seasons in the UK and tours internationally.
Robert King is an English conductor, harpsichordist, editor and author. His career has concentrated on period performance of classical music, in particular from the baroque and early modern periods. In 2007, he was convicted of fourteen charges of indecent assault, some against minors, and jailed. Following his release, he resumed his musical career.
Sir Anthony Carey Lewis, was an English musicologist, conductor, composer, and music educator. He co-founded and served as the first chief editor of Musica Britannica, producing scholarly editions of British music hitherto unavailable. He published critical editions of operas by Handel, Purcell and John Blow.
Julian Livingstone Herbage was a British musicologist, broadcaster and member of the BBC music department. He is known for his scholarly edition of the score of Handel's Messiah (1935), for his role in planning the Proms from 1945 to 1961, and for editing and presenting the weekly BBC programme Music Magazine from 1944 to 1973.
Rae Jenkins, born Henry Horatio Jenkins was a Welsh violinist and later conductor of light music, notably with the BBC Midland Light Orchestra (1942–1946), the BBC Variety Orchestra (from 1946), and as principal conductor of the BBC Welsh Orchestra (1950–1965). In 1955 Hubert Clifford, Head of Light Music at the BBC, called Jenkins "the most gifted and experienced conductor of light music in the country".
Endymion, formerly Endymion Ensemble, is an English chamber music ensemble, founded in 1979 and dedicated to contemporary classical music.
James Lockhart is a Scottish conductor, pianist and organist who served as music director for a number of organisations.
Mark Hugh Lubbock (1898–1986) was a British conductor and composer, especially of light music.
Frances Eileen Edmonds is a British writer. She is known for her books Another Bloody Tour: England in the West Indies (1986) and Cricket XXXX Cricket (1987) about touring with her husband, the former England cricketer Phil Edmonds.
Joseph Phibbs is an English composer of orchestral, choral and chamber music. He has also composed for theatre, both in the UK and Japan. Since 1998 he has written regularly to commissions for Festivals, for private sponsors, and for the BBC, which has broadcast premieres of his orchestral and chamber works from the Proms and elsewhere. His works have been given premieres in Europe, the United States and the Far East, and he has received prestigious awards, including most recently a British Composer Award, and a Library of Congress Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation Award. Many of his works have been premiered by leading international musicians, including Dame Evelyn Glennie, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Sakari Oramo, Vasily Petrenko, Gianandrea Noseda, and the Belcea Quartet.