Paul McCreesh has guest conducted many of the major orchestras and choirs across the globe, including most recently the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Bergen Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Verbier Festival orchestras, and Berlin Konzerthausorchester. McCreesh also enjoys regular and ongoing collaborations with Saint Paul and Basel Chamber Orchestras.
This season he returns to conduct Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and maintains his collaborations with Filharmonia Poznanska and Kammerorchester Basel.
In 2019/20, he conducted Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 and excerpts from Schubert’s Rosamunde with the New Japan Philharmonic, Haydn’s Creation with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Handel’s Messiah with the Casa da Música Baroque Orchestra & Choir, Haydn’s London Symphony & Beethoven’s C Major Mass with Filharmonia Poznanska.
From 2013-2016 he was Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the Gulbenkian Orchestra (Lisbon) with whom he conducted a wide range of music from the classical period through to the nineteenth and twentieth century, focusing in particular on symphonic repertoire, oratorio and opera in concert, working closely with the world-renowned Gulbenkian Choir.
McCreesh has established a strong reputation in the opera house and has conducted productions at the Teatro Real Madrid, Royal Danish Opera, Opera Comique, Vlaamse Opera and at the Verbier Festival, and most recently he conducted Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Bergen Opera, and returned to Vlaamse Opera for a production of Idomeneo.
In 2011, McCreesh launched his own record label, Winged Lion, in collaboration with the Gabrieli Consort & Players, Signum Classics and the Wratislavia Cantans Festival, where he was Artistic Director between 2006 and 2012. To date they have made seven recordings, most recently Haydn The Seasons, released in spring 2017 and lauded by critics: “the communal sense of joy is infectious” (Financial Times) and “Glorious” (Guardian).
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Recording CD: Purcell The Fairy Queen 1692, Gabrieli Consort
Signum Classics SIGCD615 (April 2020)
A fine recording ... scholarly and sensitive... McCreesh and his performers give their impressive all to the miraculous score.
The Times
McCreesh’s production rises to the occasion: original voiving, unorthodox continuo, project-specific trumpet design and rediscovered string techniques bring out qualities missing from earlier recordings. Purcell’s hornpipes were never livelier, nor his chaconnes statelier, than in this performance.
BBC Music Magazine (Opera Choice)*****
Impeccable ... McCreesh's labour of love has abundant nuances and transcedent beauty.
Gramophone (Editor’s Choice)
For his work there can be nothing but praise, from the subtle subdued hues produced by his strings, set up and bowed in accord with 17th-century practice, to the gossamer-like touch he brings to so much of the score... McCreesh's Purcell … has no rival.
Opera Magazine
“…a blissful marriage of musicological inquisitiveness and artistic creativity”
David Vickers, Gramophone
As always with Gabrieli, the music-making itself is top-notch … recommended in particular for Purcell enthusiasts.
The Classic Review
Paul McCreesh and Gabrieli have become so accomplished at breathing new life into historical works and occasions that it’s difficult to give this latest recording the praise it deserves without becoming repetitive. Their trademark approach to authenticity continues to be a winning formula – recapturing the spirit, rather than the precise letter, of the original – and the performers all flit effortlessly between the narrative’s changes of mood. I can’t think of anyone who could give a better rendition of this Restoration 'feel-good' masterpiece.
David Smith, Presto Classical
Applying the latest research, Paul McCreesh and his forces give a performance of engaging freshness and vitality...
Robert Hugill, Planet Hugill*****
Purcell King Arthur, Gabrieli Consort
St John’s Smith Square (October 2019)
Above all, though, this was an evening of joyous, wonderfully elegant music-making. Nine singers shared the songs and choruses between them, a flawless ensemble of equals… The playing, meanwhile, had everything one could wish for in its deftness, grace and lightness of touch.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian*****
Recording CD: Purcell King Arthur 1691, Gabrieli Consort
Signum Classics SIGCD589 (October 2019)
Enter McCreesh and his team. They’ve re-thought not just the score, but the instruments and practices of Purcell’s day. In their King Arthur, choruses are more vibrant, dance rhythms more percussive and solos more delicate than in any previous recording. Above all, McCreesh and his artists make us hear Purcell’s genius for word-setting. …McCreesh’s new performing edition, which contains re-ordered numbers and a finale forged from other works by Purcell, is the catalyst for this intimate, intensely energetic production.
Berta Joncus, BBC Music Magazine
Throughout the opera McCreesh’s speeds are relaxed rather than driven – no bad thing, to my mind, and it results in Dryden’s wonderful poetry being acted with personable clarity, and the lucidity of musical gestures ensures that affection and intimacy are hallmarks of a performance that conveys a humane smile.
David Vickers, Gramophone
Overall, this is a cultivated performance, well sung and played
Richard Fairman, The Financial Times****
Paul McCreesh follows convention by giving us only the musical numbers, but unlike most conductors he gives us a performance benefitting from years of living with and thinking about the work, constantly evolving his approach to it. The result tempts only superlatives, for the new recording is as accomplished and richly satisfying an experience as anyone could hope for... Throughout, indeed, the outstanding orchestral plating is one of the great pleasures of the performance, beguiling or rhythmically buoyant and pointed as circumstances demand.
Brian Robins, Opera Magazine
Purcell's King Arthur, in a crisp and clean new recording of a scholarly new performing edition from the Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh. Don't fear if that sounds a little dusty, because new string articulation, coarser reeds for wind instruments and natural trumpets mean that the music has a vivid and lively personality.
Francis Muzzu, Opera Now****
Recording CD: An English Coronation, Gabrieli Consort
Signum Classics SIGCD569 (May 2019)
A project delivered with McCreesh’s customary attention to detail…it’s a labour of love and sounds it…Incisive in the orchestral works – what scintillating woodwind playing he secures in Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 – McCreesh is at his considerable best in the choral items.
Paul Riley, BBC Music Magazine*****
On his tireless voyage of ceremonial and liturgical reconstruction, Paul McCreesh’s 20th-century coronation anthology is arguably his most ambitious and intricate to date… Well-articulated insights into the rich theatrical dimension of this quartet of coronations work best in the large works, all of which sound spectacular in the ringing acoustic… One can imagine the virtuosity required by every contributor, at every turn, to make this a reality, let alone a dazzling triumph.
Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Gramophone
Elgar’s sombre, introspective Coronation March is performed with real style, the articulation crisp, the transparent orchestral sound allowing every detail to register... Experience and innocence collide to staggering musical and sonic effect: listen to this lot in Parry’s I Was Glad or Handel's Zadok the Priest and be amazed at the visceral punch of these forces at full pelt. Girding, anointing, oblation and ‘orb delivery’ are omitted, but otherwise we get a remarkable sense of what being sat in Westminster Abbey must have been like… Walton's Coronation Te Deum is sensational, as is Crown Imperial, these pieces surrounding David Matthews's exquisite, newly commissioned Recessional, which leads straight into his arrangement of the National Anthem. Its second verse features almost 1,000 performers, massed trumpets and bells suggesting Janaček’s Glagolitic Mass. A treat, even for those with republican leanings. Signum’s production values are exemplary, the two CDs presented in a covetable hardback book. Really, really impressive, and fun to boot.
Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk
Paul McCreesh’s reconstruction projects always feel like events; six months on his celebration of the grandeur and grace, drama and dignity of the British coronation remains as moving as it is memorable.
Martin Cullingford, Gramophone
Mozart & Tchaikovsky, Kammerorchester Basel
(May 2019)
The impulses he gives to the interpretation with his eloquent hands are perfectly enough.
Gerhard Dietel, Mittelbayerische
Repertoire Selection
| BERLIOZ | Nuits d'été |
|---|---|
| BEETHOVEN | Symphonies 1-4, 6-9 |
| BRAHMS | Serenades 1 & 2 |
| BRITTEN | Interludes from Peter Grimes |
| COPLAND | Appalachian Spring |
| DVORAK | Cello Concerto in B minor |
| ELGAR | Cello Concerto in E minor |
| HAYDN | Seven last words from the Cross |
| MAHLER | Das Knaben Wunderhorn song cycle |
| MENDELSSOHN | Piano Concertos 1 & 2 |
| MOZART | Ballet music from Idomeneo |
| NIELSON | Clarinet Concerto |
| PROKOFIEV | Symphony No. 1 (‘Classical’) |
| SCHOENBERG | Verklarte nacht |
| SCHUBERT | Overture in the Italian style |
| SCHUMANN | Cello Concerto in A minor |
| SHOSTAKOVICH | Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major |
| SIBELIUS | Lemminkäinen Legends |
| STRAUSS | Four last Songs |
| STRAVINSKY | Concerto in E-flat major (‘Dumbarton oaks’) |
| TCHAIKOVSKY | Romeo and Juliet |
| VAUGHAN WILLIAMS | Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis |
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