Jeffrey Skidmore - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Jeffrey Skidmore is the conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

and artistic director

Artistic director (music)

An artistic director may refer to someone who directs a musical ensemble, and in this medium, is often abbreviated as simply Director. The typical jobs of a musical artistic director are to choose repertoire for the ensemble, come up with an artistic vision for the group and also a long-term...

of Ex Cathedra

Ex Cathedra

Ex Cathedra is a British choir and early music ensemble based in Birmingham in the West Midlands, England. It performs choral music spanning the 15th to 21st centuries, and regularly commissions new works....

, a choir

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

and early music

Early music

Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...

ensemble

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

based in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

in the West Midlands

West Midlands (county)

The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. 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

Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

to prepare new performing editions of French

French classical music

French classical music began with the sacred music of the Roman Catholic Church, with written records predating the reign of Charlemagne. It includes all of the major genres of sacred and secular, instrumental and vocal music...

and Italian music

Italian classical music

-Art Music:"Art music" is a somewhat broader term than "classical music" and may be defined for the purposes of this article as "establishment" music that is composed for public or private performance. By definition, it excludes popular musical forms that are based on folk music...

. In particular, his recordings of French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

and Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

n Baroque music

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

with Ex Cathedra have won wide acclaim.

Education and current activities

Jeffrey Skidmore was born in Birmingham

Birmingham

, England

England

in 1951. Skidmore began conducting while still at school, and was only 18 years old when he founded the Ex Cathedra choir

Choir

in Birmingham in 1969. After going to Bournville Boys Technical School, later Bournville Grammar-Technical School for Boys

Bournville School

Bournville School and sixth form centre is a coeducational, state comprehensive school, with Specialist Business and Enterprise College and Music College status, for students aged 11–19 years, located on Griffins Brook Lane, Bournville, Birmingham in the United Kingdom.Since 2002 Bournville has...

, he went on to read music with David Wulstan at Magdalen College

Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...

, University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

, where he was a choral scholar

Choral scholar

A choral scholar is a student either at a university or private school who receives a scholarship in exchange for singing in the school or university's choir...

under Bernard Rose

Bernard Rose (musician)

Bernard William George Rose, OBE was variously a student at the Royal College of Music 1933-1935, organist, soldier, and composer...

. He then taught as a music school teacher in Birmingham.

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

BBC Singers

The BBC Singers are the professional chamber choir of the BBC. As one of six BBC Performing Groups, the 24-voiced choir has been in existence for more than 80 years. The BBC Singers have commissioned and premiered works by the leading composers of the past century, including Benjamin Britten, Sir...

, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. The Orchestra's current chief executive, appointed in 1999, is Stephen Maddock...

and the Hanover Band

Hanover Band

The Hanover Band founded by Caroline Brown in 1980 is a British period-instrument orchestra.The group's website explains the name thus: 'Hanover' signifies the Hanoverian period 1714-1830 and 'Band' is the 18th century term for orchestra....

. He has commissioned more than ten new works and conducted many world premières

Premiere

A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...

by well-established and new composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

s, including Fyfe Hutchins

Fyfe Dangerfield

Fyfe Antony Dangerfield Hutchins is an English musician and songwriter, best known as the founding member of the indie rock band Guillemots.-Early life:...

, Gabriel Jackson

Gabriel Jackson

Gabriel Jackson is an American Hispanist, historian and journalist. He was born in New York. He is a leading authority on the Second Spanish Republic and the Spanish Civil War. Since his retirement he has lived in Barcelona, Spain....

, John Joubert

John Joubert (composer)

John Joubert is a British composer of South African descent, particularly of choral works. He has lived in Moseley, a suburb of Birmingham, England, for over 40 years. A music academic at the universities of Hull and Birmingham for 36 years, Joubert took early retirement in 1986 to concentrate on...

, Daryl Runswick

Daryl Runswick

Daryl Runswick is a classically trained English composer, arranger, musician, producer and educationalist.He started playing bass with leading UK jazz musicians in the mid-60s, including Dick Morrissey and John Dankworth, with whom he would tour and compose for extensively for some 12 years...

, Peter Sculthorpe

Peter Sculthorpe

Peter Joshua Sculthorpe AO OBE is an Australian composer. Much of his music has resulted from an interest in the music of Australia's neighbours as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of native Australian music with that of the heritage of the West...

, Philip Sheppard, Peter Wiegold and Roderick Williams

Roderick Williams

Roderick Williams is an English operatic baritone.-Biography:Williams studied on the Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music in London...

.

In the field of opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

Skidmore worked with Marc Minkowski

Marc Minkowski

Marc Minkowski is a French conductor of classical music, especially known for his interpretations of French Baroque works. His mother is American, and his father was Alexandre Minkowski, a Polish-French professor of pediatrics and one of the founders of neonatology...

and David McVicker on the 2004 production of Eccles' Semele at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées

Théâtre des Champs-Élysées

The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées is a theatre at 15 avenue Montaigne. Despite its name, the theatre is not on the Champs-Élysées but nearby in another part of the 8th arrondissement of Paris....

in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

; and conducted Cavalli

Francesco Cavalli

Francesco Cavalli was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli, a Venetian nobleman.-Life:Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy...

's La Calisto
La Calisto
La Calisto is an opera by Francesco Cavalli with a libretto by Giovanni Faustini. The libretto was published in 1651 by Giuliani and Batti. The opera received its first performance on 28 November 1651 at the Teatro San Apollinare, Venice...

, Purcell

Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...

's Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at Josias Priest's girls' school in London no later than the summer of 1688. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid...

, and Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...

's Pigmalion
Pigmalion (opera)
For the opera by Georg Benda see Pygmalion Pigmalion is an opera in the form of a one-act acte de ballet by Jean-Philippe Rameau first performed on 27 August 1748 at the Opéra in Paris. The libretto is by Ballot de Sovot. The work has generally been regarded as the best of Rameau's one-act pieces...

at the Birmingham Conservatoire of Birmingham City University

Birmingham City University

Birmingham City University is a British university in the city of Birmingham, England. It is the second largest of three universities in the city, the other two being the Aston University and University of Birmingham...

(formerly University of Central England). With Ex Cathedra he gave the first performances in modern times of the French

France

Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

operas Zaïde, reine de Grenade
Zaïde, reine de Grenade
Zaïde, reine de Grenade is a ballet-héroïque written by the French Baroque composer Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer Zaïde, reine de Grenade (Zaïde, Queen of Grenada) is a ballet-héroïque written by the French Baroque composer Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer Zaïde, reine de Grenade (Zaïde, Queen of...

(Zaïde, Queen of Grenada) by Royer

Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer

Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer was a French composer and harpsichordist.Born in Turin, Royer went to Paris in 1725, and in 1734 became maître de musique des enfants de France, responsible for the musical education of the children of the king, Louis XV...

and Isis
Isis (Lully)
Isis is an opera by Jean-Baptiste Lully. The librettist is Lully's frequent collaborator, Philippe Quinault, and like most of Lully's operas, it is a tragédie lyrique. It premièred January 5, 1677 at the court of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and was first published in 1719.The story of the opera centers...

by Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...

Contributions to musicology and musical education

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

France

and Latin America

Latin America

n Baroque music

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

with Ex Cathedra for Hyperion Records

Hyperion Records

Hyperion Records is an independent British classical record label.-History:The company was named after Hyperion, one of the Titans of Greek mythology. It was founded by George Edward Perry, widely known as "Ted", in 1980. Early LP releases included rarely recorded 20th century British music by...

. An honorary fellow

Honorary title (academic)

Honorary titles in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties...

at the Birmingham Conservatoire and a research fellow

Research fellow

The title of research fellow is used to denote a research position at a university or similar institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act either as an independent investigator or under the supervision of a principal investigator...

at the University of Birmingham

University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...

, he has worked with many leading musicologists

Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

to prepare new performing editions of French

French classical music

, Italian

Italian classical music

and Spanish music by Giovanni Animuccia

Giovanni Animuccia

Giovanni Animuccia was an Italian composer of the Renaissance and was involved in the heart of Rome’s liturgical musical life, and one of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's most important contemporaries...

, Juan de Araujo

Juan de Araujo

Juan de Araujo was a musician and composer of the Early to Mid Baroque.Araujo was born in Villafranca, Spain. By 1670 he was nominated maestro di capella of Lima Cathedral. In the following years he travelled to Panama and most probably to Guatemala...

, Marc-Antoine Charpentier

Marc-Antoine Charpentier

Marc-Antoine Charpentier, , was a French composer of the Baroque era.Exceptionally prolific and versatile, he produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres...

, Michel Richard Delalande

Michel Richard Delalande

Michel Richard Delalande [de Lalande] was a French Baroque composer and organist who was in the service of King Louis XIV. He was one of the most important composers of grand motets. He also wrote orchestral suites known as "Simphonies pour les Soupers du Roy" and ballets...

, Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...

and Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau

.

Active in music education

Music education

Music education is a field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music. It touches on all domains of learning, including the psychomotor domain , the cognitive domain , and, in particular and significant ways,the affective domain, including music appreciation and sensitivity...

, Skidmore is Artistic Director of Early Music and the Capelle Baroque Orchestra of the 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 Arts Festival.

External links

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