Paul McCreesh (born 24 May 1960)
is an English
conductor.
Paul McCreesh is the founder and artistic director of the Gabrieli Consort & Players. With them he has performed in major concert halls and festivals across the world. He has been the artistic director of the
Wratislavia Cantans Festival in
Wrocław
Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
and of the
Brinkburn Festival in England.
In 2005
Loughborough University conferred on him the honorary degree of
Doctor of Letters.
Musical education
McCreesh began his career as a cellist and took his MusB from the
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...
in 1981.
Repertoire and performance
Paul McCreesh made his name in the music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, particularly that of Venice. The Gabrieli Consort was founded in 1982 and as of 2020 is still active. McCreesh and the Gabrielis made a successful
Proms début in 1992: the second part of the concert was "Music for the Coronation of a Doge, 27 April 1595".
In recent years he has also worked with modern instrument orchestras including the
DSO Berlin, RSO Berlin,
Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris,
Detroit Symphony Orchestra,
Minnesota Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Sinfónica de Euskadi, Stockholm Philharmonic and Beethovenhalle Bonn, the
Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia di Roma.
Opera
McCreesh has conducted
Handel's ''
Jephtha'' for
Welsh National Opera and
Gluck's ''
Orfeo ed Euridice'', as well as
Mozart's ''
The Magic Flute'' for
Royal Danish Opera and, for
Komische Oper Berlin, a new David Alden staging of Handel's ''
Alcina
''Alcina'' (Händel-Werke-Verzeichnis, HWV 34) is a 1735 opera by George Frideric Handel. Handel used the libretto of ''L'isola di Alcina'', a work set to music in 1728 in Rome by Riccardo Broschi, which he had acquired a year later during his t ...
''. He has also conducted Handel's ''
Rodelinda'' at the
Beaune Festival and at the
Brinkburn Festival, which he founded.
Recordings
From 1993 Paul McCreesh built a large discography for
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...
. In 2011 he established Winged Lion, an independent label, which is a subsidiary of
Signum Records.
Reconstructions
McCreesh is noted for his "liturgical reconstructions" in which music is presented in the context of a specific
liturgy with appropriate background sounds such as bell-ringing.
The
Gramophone Award winning album "Venetian Coronation" (released on
Virgin Classics in 1990) represented a breakthrough for the Gabrieli Consort and Players. A new version of this musical reconstruction of the coronation of
Marino Grimani was released in 2012 on Winged Lion.
"Music for the Duke of Lerma" is a musical reconstruction featuring Spanish sacred music associated with
Francisco Gómez de Sandoval, 1st Duke of Lerma. It was released on DG's
Archiv label.
Opera
In 2020 McCreesh's recording of Purcell's
semi-opera ''King Arthur'' was judged best recording of the year by ''
BBC Music Magazine''.
References
External links
Paul McCreesh's management website (Rayfield Allied)The Gabrieli Consort & PlayersThe Monteverdi violins
Info about the Gabrielis' replica Baroque violins
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:McCreesh, Paul
English choral conductors
British male conductors (music)
1960 births
Living people
British performers of early music
21st-century British conductors (music)
21st-century British male musicians