Choir of The Queen's College Oxford & Owen Rees
Biography Choir of The Queen's College Oxford & Owen Rees
The Choir of The Queen's College, Oxford
was recently hailed as ‘one of the world’s most renowned choirs’ by Classic FM and the Director Owen Rees’s interpretations of choral music have been described as ‘revelatory and even visionary’ (BBC Music Magazine). The mixed-voice choir consists of thirty singers, including some twenty Choral Scholars who are students of the College, Choral Exhibitioners from other colleges, and two professional Lay Clerks. Its extensive concert schedule involves appearances across the UK and abroad, including work with such professional ensembles as the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Brook Street Band. It regularly tours abroad, and recent concert tours have included Taiwan (in 2017), China (with appearances in the Forbidden City Concert Hall, Beijing, and the Shanghai Concert Hall), the USA (including concerts in the National Cathedral in Washington and in Virginia), Sri Lanka, Italy, Sardinia, Portugal, Spain, France, the Low Countries, and Germany. Queen’s choir’s latest CD releases are on the Signum and Avie labels. May 2013 saw the release of a CD of Dixit Dominus settings by Handel and Alessandro Scarlatti, which was hailed as ‘a disc of unusually high calibre’ by Early Music Review and awarded 5 stars by Choir and Organ. In 2011 Queen’s choir commissioned, premiered, and recorded a major new work, Welcome all Wonders, by the British composer David Bednall. Carols from Queen’s enjoyed nine weeks in the Specialist Classical Charts, was 'Drive Featured Album of the Week' on Classic FM, and was a Telegraph Christmas pick. The choir’s latest disc, A New Heaven, released in March 2017, went straight to no. 1 in its first week of sales, and BBC Music Magazine commented that the recording shows 'the singers at their radiant best'. Queen’s choir has also recorded for film at the famous Abbey Road Studios, and appears on the Grammy-nominated soundtrack of the Warner-Brothers film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The choir broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio. Its wide-ranging repertory includes a rich array of music from Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces to contemporary works, including commissions. During the academic year the choir provides the music for regular services in the College’s splendid Baroque Chapel.
Owen Rees
is Professor of Music at the University of Oxford, and Fellow in Music and Organist (Director of Music) at The Queen’s College, Oxford. He directs the Chapel Choir of The Queen’s College and also conducts the professional early-music choir Contrapunctus. His work as a conductor has taken him to the USA, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, Norway, and the Netherlands, and he is increasingly busy as a leader of choral workshops. He has broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and in several other countries. His CD recordings with Queen’s and other choirs – on the Hyperion, Signum and Avie labels – encompass a wide variety of choral repertory, and have attracted consistently high critical acclaim. Owen Rees has brought to the concert hall and recording studio substantial repertories of magnificent Renaissance music, particularly from Portugal, Spain, and England, including many previously unknown or little-known works. His interpretations of these repertories have been acclaimed as ‘rare examples of scholarship and musicianship combining to result in performances that are both impressive and immediately attractive to the listener’, and he has been described as ‘one of the most energetic and persuasive voices’ in this field. Owen Rees's work has been shortlisted for the Gramophone Early Music Award three times.
