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Jeffrey Skidmore
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Jeffrey Skidmore | ||
|---|---|---|
 Jeffrey Skidmore, photographed by Adrian Burrows
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| Background information | ||
| Birth name | Jeffrey Skidmore | |
| Born | 1951 Birmingham, West Midlands, England |
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| Genre(s) | Classical | |
| Occupation(s) | Conductor; musicologist | |
| Label(s) | Ex Cathedra; ASV Records; Hyperion Records | |
| Associated acts |
Ex Cathedra | |
| Website | www.ex-cathedra.org/jeffreyskidmore.php | |
Jeffrey Skidmore, born in 1951 in Birmingham, England, is the conductor and artistic director of Ex Cathedra, the flagship early music ensemble for Birmingham and the West Midlands. An active participant in musical education and a pioneer in researching and performing neglected choral works of the 16th to 18th centuries, he has worked with leading musicologists to prepare new performing editions of French and Italian music. In particular, his recordings of French and Latin American Baroque music with Ex Cathedra have won wide acclaim.
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Skidmore began conducting while still at school, and was only 18 years old when he founded the Ex Cathedra choir in Birmingham in 1969. He went on to read music with David Wulstan at Magdalen College, University of Oxford, where he was a choral scholar under Bernard Rose.[1]
Directing the Ex Cathedra choir and its associated Ex Cathedra Consort and Baroque Orchestra, Skidmore has appeared in concert series and festivals across the UK and abroad, and has made a number of highly-acclaimed recordings. In addition, he regularly conducts other ensembles such as the BBC Singers, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Hanover Band and the Northern Sinfonia. He has commissioned more than ten new works and conducted many world premières by well-established and new composers, including Fyfe Hutchins, Gabriel Jackson, John Joubert, Daryl Runswick, Peter Sculthorpe, Philip Sheppard, Peter Wiegold and Roderick Williams.
In the field of opera Skidmore worked with Marc Minkowski and David McVicker on the 2004 production of Eccles' Semele at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris; and conducted Cavalli's La Calisto, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, and Rameau's Pigmalion at the UCE Birmingham Conservatoire. With Ex Cathedra he gave the first performances in modern times of the French Baroque operas Zaïde, reine de Grenade (Zaïde, Queen of Grenada) by Royer and Isis by Lully.[2][3]
Skidmore is a pioneer in the field of research and performance of neglected choral works of the 16th to 18th centuries, and, in particular, has won wide acclaim for his recordings of French and Latin American Baroque music with Ex Cathedra for Hyperion Records. An Honorary Fellow at the UCE Birmingham Conservatoire and a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, he has worked with many leading musicologists to prepare new performing editions of French and Italian music by Giovanni Animuccia, Juan de Araujo, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Michel Richard Delalande, Claudio Monteverdi and Jean-Philippe Rameau.[1]
Active in music education, Skidmore is Artistic Director of Early Music and the Capelle Baroque Orchestra of the UCE Birmingham Conservatoire, and director of Ex Cathedra's wide-reaching education programme. He frequently gives choral training workshops and teaches at summer schools in the UK and overseas. He has regularly directed the choral programme at Dartington International Summer School and was Classical Music Programmer for the 2005 Kilkenny Festival.[2][3]
- ^ a b Jeffrey Skidmore at the website of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music.
- ^ a b Jeffrey Skidmore at the website of Ex Cathedra.
- ^ a b Programme for Ex Cathedra's performance of John Joubert's Wings of Faith at The Oratory, Birmingham, on 22 March 2007.
- Jeffrey Skidmore at the website of Ex Cathedra
- Jeffrey Skidmore at the website of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music
- Programme for Ex Cathedra's performance of John Joubert's Wings of Faith at The Oratory, Birmingham, on 22 March 2007.
- Dunnett, Roderic. "Ex Cathedra, Lichfield Cathedral (concert review)", The Independent, 2000-04-19.
- Church, Michael. "The Jesuits Invent Fusion", The Independent, 2001-09-09.
- Northcott, Bayan. "Ex Cathedra, St John's, Smith Square, London : Rome's Genius Resurrected (concert review)", The Independent, 2002-02-01.
- Northcott, Bayan. "Ex Cathedra/Skidmore, St John's, Smith Square, London: When World Music Met the Baroque (preview of Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music 2002)", The Independent, 2002-05-24.
- Norris, Geoffrey. "Dies Irae to Didgeridoo (review of Lichfield Festival 2004)", The Daily Telegraph, 2004-07-15.
- Stewart, Pat (July 2005). Eastern Early Music Forum: Lalande day with Jeffrey Skidmore. Extract from EEMF Newsletter 59. Retrieved on April 8, 2007.
- Dunnett, Roderic. "Ex Cathedra, Oratory, Birmingham (review of "A Latin American Christmas" concert)", The Independent, 2005-12-14.
- Jeffrey Skidmore at the website of Ex Cathedra
- Jeffrey Skidmore at the Bach Cantatas website
- Jeffrey Skidmore at the Hyperion Records website
- Jeffrey Skidmore at the website of the Lacock Summer School, which conducts courses for singers and players of Renaissance and Baroque instruments
- Jeffrey Skidmore at the website of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music
- Jeffrey Skidmore at the website of Mayler Artist Management