 Stephen Cleobury is associated with two of Britain’s most famous choirs. Renowned equally as a conductor and organist, he has, since 1982, been Director of Music at King’s College, Cambridge. At the end of 2006 he was appointed Conductor Emeritus of the BBC Singers, Britain’s only full-time professional choir, whose Chief Conductor he was for 11 years. He is also Conductor of the Cambridge University Music Society, one of the oldest such organisations in the world and works with leading symphony orchestras and period instrument ensembles. He ranges across a broad repertoire, from Gregorian chant to newly composed works. He has particularly championed contemporary music and at King’s 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, including the Minnesotan composer, Stephen Paulus.
Of late, performances as an organ recitalist have taken him to venues as diverse as Houston, Texas, Leeds Town Hall, the Performing Arts Centre in 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 and touring with the CUMS in Switzerland. In the midst of a tour of the BBC Singers in Japan, he gave a lecture on the music of Benjamin Britten at the International Choral Symposium in Kyoto, and recently he travelled to Vienna to take part in an international symposium on voice training under the auspices of the Vienna Boys’ Choir.
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.
He has directed the orchestra and chorus of the Cambridge University Music Society in the major works for chorus and orchestra as well as in 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, Dvořák 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.
In March 2004, he instigated the first annual Easter Festival at King’s, at which he conducts concerts with the Chapel Choir and the Academy of Ancient Music, many of which are broadcast by the BBC. He has frequently premièred works with the BBC Singers, notably Francis Grier Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ at the Easter Festival in 2006, Giles Swayne Havoc and Harrison Birtwistle Ring Dance of the Nazarene at the Royal Albert Hall at the Proms, and Edward Cowie Gaia, all with the leading chamber ensemble, Endymion. More recently he premièred Errollyn Wallen Our English Heart in Portsmouth with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Singers as part of the Nelson celebrations.
His CD output is prolific. King’s College has an exclusive contract with EMI and the latest release is Brahms Requiem in the version with piano duet accompaniment. The Choir can also be seen and heard on DVD. He has also recorded with the BBC Singers, and there are solo organ recordings, too. Priory Records is about to re-release his much acclaimed account of the Elgar Sonatas.
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