El Leon de Oro, Peter Phillips & Marco Antonio Garcia de Paz
Biography El Leon de Oro, Peter Phillips & Marco Antonio Garcia de Paz
El León de Oro
2017 marked twenty years since the foundation of El León de Oro, a vocal ensemble that began life in Asturias (Spain) as a small group of friends who were passionate about singing. Over the intervening years the group has established a solid international standing, as attested by numerous awards and invitations to the finest festivals. LDO’s chief ambitions remain the search for acoustic beauty, the experiencing of polyphonic purity, and the community that emerges from assembled singing. Members are characterized by their enthusiasm and dedication: an irrefutable willingness to favour quality rather than quantity.
LDO has given a cappella concerts at distinguished festivals across Europe, America and Africa, and maintains ongoing collaborations with important Spanish orchestras, including the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias, the Oviedo Filarmonía and the Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, in performances of Bach’s Magnificat, St Matthew Passion and St John Passion, requiems by Fauré, Brahms and Mozart, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9, Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé.
In Spain, LDO has participated in Cuenca’s Semana de Música Religiosa, with a standalone concert as well as Spem in alium with The Tallis Scholars conducted by Peter Phillips. Also noteworthy is LDO’s participation in the Festival Musika-Música, the Festival de Música Antigua in both Logroño and Aranjuez, the Festival Internacional ‘Arte Sacro’ in Madrid, and ‘Bilbao Arte Sacro’. The group has twice collaborated with the Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical, and has performed Mozart’s Coronation Mass in Oviedo and León with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg conducted by Leopold Hager.
LDO was awarded first prize at the 2014 London International A Cappella Choir Competition, beating off competition from choral ensembles from around the world. Other awards include the Gran Premio Nacional de Canto Coral in 2003 and 2006, the Città di Arezzo Grand Prize, and first prizes at the International Choir Contest of Flanders, the Certamen Coral Internacional de Tolosa, the Varna International May Choir Competition, and the Florilège Vocal de Tours. The group was selected by the Spanish Association of Classical Music Festivals for the Circuitos FestClásica 2020 award in the ‘Early Music’ category. Its main sponsor is the SATEC group, which is essential to its musical activity. LDO is also sponsored by institutions such as INAEM and the Principality of Asturias.
Peter Phillips
was born in 1953 in Portsmouth, in the south of England, moving from there to nearby Winchester and Oxford in pursuit of an education. At Winchester College he had his first experience of conducting Renaissance polyphony—Victoria’s O magnum mysterium. At Oxford he was Organ Scholar of St John’s College, and had a chapel choir of undergraduates with which to experiment. This led to the founding of The Tallis Scholars in 1973, and to the beginning of a career which has grown into nearly 2,500 concerts and seventy albums, largely dedicated to polyphony.
Since then he has encouraged the performance of Renaissance music all over the world. His close relationship with El León de Oro, which began in 2012, is proof of his sense of this mission. In 2017 he was made Director Honorífico of LDO, alongside their chief conductor Marco Antonio García de Paz. In addition to eighty concerts a year with The Tallis Scholars, he continues to pursue this mission with Intrada of Moscow, the BBC Singers, the Nederlands Kamerkoor, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, and the Danish National Vocal Ensemble.
In recent years Peter has commissioned a number of contemporary composers to write music that suits choirs specializing in polyphony. Among these have been John Tavener, Eric Whitacre, Gabriel Jackson, Alexander Campkin, Nico Muhly and Matthew Martin. He has also formed a special relationship with Arvo Pärt. In addition to conducting, Peter writes and broadcasts. He recently concluded a six-programme series for BBC Radio 3 entitled The Glory of Polyphony.
In 2010 Peter was made a Bodley Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, where he was instrumental in setting up a new choral foundation. In 2005 he was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture.
Marco Antonio García de Paz
is the founder and conductor of El León de Oro. In high demand as a conductor and a leader of workshops, courses and training seminars on singing and conducting, he has been invited to judge choral competitions all over the world, and works frequently with professional choirs across Spain, among them, the Choir of the Community of Madrid (ORCAM), and the National Choir of Spain (CNE). He won ‘Best Conductor’ awards at both the 2005 International May Choir Competition in Varna, Bulgaria, and at the 2007 Internationale Koorwedstrijd van Vlaanderen in Maasmechelen, Belgium. Marco is a professor at the Accademia Corale Italiana and conductor of the Young Choir of Andalusia (JCA). He has recorded on the Hyperion Records, Naxos and RTVE Música labels. Making his debuts in Mexico and at the Palau de Barcelona in 2024, Marco is currently principal conductor of the Spanish Radio Television Choir.
