Stephen Cleobury
Artist Details Stephen CleoburyCategory: ConductorsStephen Cleobury is highly regarded throughout Europe and beyond for his work as both a choral and an orchestral conductor. His very great experience has imbued him with the ability to get to the musical heart of a work. A technically accomplished conductor, his acute ear for tuning and his calm personality allow him bring out the best in his musicians. LAM
General Management. BiographyStephen Cleobury is associated with two of Britain’s most famous choirs, being Director of Music at King’s College, Cambridge and Conductor Laureate of the BBC Singers. He also works with leading symphony orchestras and period instrument ensembles. He ranges across a broad repertoire, from Gregorian chant to newly composed works, having particularly championed contemporary music. At King’s, he has commissioned a carol annually for A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, thereby refreshing this great tradition of Christmas music with compositions from the foremost composers of our own day. Some twenty of these commissions were released on CD by EMI Records last Christmas. In March 2005, he instigated the first Easter Festival of Music at King’s, at which he conducted concerts with the Chapel Choir and the Academy of Ancient Music. He has premièred many works with the BBC Singers, notably Giles Swayne Havoc at the Royal Albert Hall at the Proms, and Edward Cowie Gaia, both with the Endymion Ensemble. In 2004, also at the Proms, he gave the British première of Harrison Birtwistle Ring Dance of the Nazarene with the same forces. Last season he premièred King’s composer Errollyn Wallen’s Our English Heart in Portsmouth with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Singers as part of the Nelson celebrations.
BIOGRAPHY
As Conductor of the orchestra and chorus of the Cambridge University Music Society, Stephen has directed the major works for chorus and orchestra as well as symphonic repertoire and has also premièred new works, among them pieces by Alexander Goehr, Robin Holloway and Robert Saxton. Recent CUMS performances have included Mahler Resurrection Symphony in Boston, Berlioz Requiem in Ely Cathedral, Dvo?ák Stabat Mater in King’s Chapel, Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, and Tippett A Child of Our Time and Verdi Requiem, also in King's Chapel.
He frequently appears throughout Europe North America and Asia as a conductor, leader of conducting workshops and solo organist. As a conductor he has worked with many ensembles, including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic, Southbank Sinfonia, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Endymion and His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts. Of late, performances as an organ recitalist have taken him to venues as diverse as Hong Kong, Haderslev Cathedral in Denmark and Salt Lake's huge LDS Conference Center, where he played to an audience of several thousand people. Other engagements have seen him directing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City, recording with the BBC Singers a CD of Tippett’s choral music to mark the composer’s centenary, and conducting the Israel Camerata in a series of concerts in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem: giving a series of conducting master-classes in Mexico: conducting the National Chamber Choir of Ireland during their summer series in Dublin: taking the CUMS to Switzerland, and the BBC Singers to Japan, where he also gave a lecture on the music of Benjamin Britten at the International Choral Symposium in Kyoto. ReviewsCleobury’s account was typically intelligent: properly sad and devout, but without the overbearing sweetness that can prompt jabs of toothache if a conductor is not careful. … the choir achieved that open, ecstatic sound so characteristic of Duruflé’s climaxes. Geoff Brown, The Times (on a London performance of Duruflé Requiem)
REVIEWS
The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, under Stephen Cleobury, is on terrific form at present. Yet even their immaculate EMI recording of East European repertoire, Ikos, does not prepare one adequately for the breathtakingly inspired, loving performance they serve up here…
BBC Music Magazine, Rachmaninov Vespers CD
Recordings of the coronation anthems are usually winners… and this one certainly hits the mark…. plenty of energy and duly grand in scale… … Excellent choral singing, and the Academy of Ancient Music are on their toes for Cleobury. Stanley Sadie, The Gramophone, Handel CD
…a new recording by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge offers unadulterated pleasure… The… soloists, choir and Academy of Ancient Music come across… in full-bodied sound to match the warmth of their performance under Stephen Cleobury. Adrian Edwards, The Gramophone, Vivaldi CD
Rachmaninov’s choral miracles and Cleobury’s acute ear for tuning, phrasing and dynamics made this a joy. Matthew Connolly, The Times, Spitalfields Festival
Richard Morrison, The Times, Cambridge Festival
Ivan Moody, Gramophone, St John Chrysostom disc
The Observer, Heavenly Voices disc
BBC SINGERS AND ENDYMION ENSEMBLE Richard Morrison, The Times, after Cheltenham Festival Concert
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