Stephen Cleobury
As the long-time music director of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury led an extraordinary career during which he fundamentally shaped that venerable institution artistically. He championed contemporary music to a degree unusual for a conductor at the heart of the English choral tradition.
Cleobury (pronounced "CLOW-bury" with the first syllable rhyming with "how") was born in Bromley, in Kent County in southeast England, on December 31, 1948. His younger brother, Nicholas Cleobury, is also a conductor. Cleobury's musical career began, as with so many other choral directors, as a boy soprano, in his case at Worcester Cathedral. Cleobury attended St. John's College, Cambridge, as an organ scholar, studying organ and choral music with David Willcocks and George Guest. His first post was as sub-organist at Westminster Abbey. In 1976, he conducted a new work, The Lion of Suffolk, by Malcolm Williamson at a memorial service for Benjamin Britten, and he continued to emphasize contemporary music in his programming. He also worked at the Northampton Grammar School and St. Matthew's Church in Northampton in the 1970s. In 1979, Cleobury was promoted to master of music at Westminster Cathedral.
He moved to King's College as music director in 1982, a position that also involved conducting the school's centuries-old choir. To general listeners, the choir may be best known for its annual, internationally broadcast Christmas-season Festival of Lessons and Carols, which Cleobury revivified through the commissioning of a new work for the event each year. He became director of the Cambridge University Musical Society in 1983; with that university-wide choral-orchestral group, he was able to conduct larger works, including a new piece in 2009 by Peter Maxwell Davies, The Sorcerer's Mirror, that addressed the threat of climate change and marked the 800th anniversary of Cambridge. Cleobury also served as director of the BBC Singers from 1995 to 2007 and continued to be associated with the group as conductor laureate.
He led the Choir of King's College in recordings for a wide variety of labels, as organist as well as choir director, on the choir's own label in the 2010s. For that imprint, he released a recording of Herbert Howells' An English Mass in 2019. Cleobury retired in September of 2019 following a long battle with cancer and passed away in York on November 22, 2019. His influence will continue to be felt in the many choral arrangements he had made, in use at King's and around the world.
© James Manheim /TiVo
Artistas semelhantes
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Favourite Carols from King's
Stephen Cleobury, Choir of King's College, Cambridge
Classical - Lançado por Kings College Cambridge em 27/10/2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Requiem Realisations
Academy of Ancient Music, Stephen Cleobury, Choir of King's College, Cambridge
Classical - Lançado por Kings College Cambridge em 08/04/2013
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Duruflé: Requiem, Four Motets, Messe Cum Jubilo
Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment, Stephen Cleobury, Choir of King's College, Cambridge
Classical - Lançado por Kings College Cambridge em 09/09/2016
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Traditional Christmas Carols from King's
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury, Daniel Hyde
Classical - Lançado por Kings College Cambridge em 09/12/2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Fauré: Requiem & Messe basse
Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment, Stephen Cleobury, Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
Classical - Lançado por Kings College Cambridge em 09/09/2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
A Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols: The Centenary Service
Stephen Cleobury, Choir of King's College, Cambridge
Christmas Music - Lançado por Kings College Cambridge em 08/11/2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
100 Years of Nine Lessons & Carols
Stephen Cleobury, Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Sir David Willcocks, Philip Ledger
Classical - Lançado por Kings College Cambridge em 09/11/2018
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Fauré: Requiem & Messe basse
Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment, Stephen Cleobury, Ensemble of King's College, Cambridge
Classical - Lançado por King’s College, Cambridge em 09/09/2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Favourite Carols from King's
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury
Classical - Lançado por Kings College Cambridge em 27/10/2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Music of King's: Choral Favourites from Cambridge
Stephen Cleobury, Choir of King's College, Cambridge
Classical - Lançado por Kings College Cambridge em 22/03/2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bruckner: Mass in E Minor, Motets
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Choral Music (Choirs) - Lançado por Kings College Cambridge em 16/10/2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
A Ceremony Of Carols - Britten At Christmas From King's
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury
Classical - Lançado por Decca Music Group Ltd. em 11/11/2012
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Carols from King's
Choir of King's College, Cambridge & Stephen Cleobury
Classical - Lançado por Brilliant Classics em 05/10/2012
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
1615 Gabrieli in Venice
Stephen Cleobury, Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, His Majestys Sagbutts And Cornetts
Classical - Lançado por Kings College Cambridge em 30/10/2015
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
A Year at Kings
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury
Classical - Lançado por Warner Classics em 04/06/2010
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Israel in Egypt
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, The Brandenburg Consort, Stephen Cleobury
Classical - Lançado por Decca Music Group Ltd. em 11/04/2000
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Fauré/Duruflé - Requiems
Olaf Bar, Ann Murray, Richard Eteson, Choir of King's College, Cambridge, English Chamber Orchestra, Stephen Cleobury
Classical - Lançado por Warner Classics em 01/01/1989
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rachmaninov: Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, Op. 31
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury
Classical - Lançado por Warner Classics em 01/03/2004
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rutter: Gloria, Magnificat, Psalm 150
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury
Classical - Lançado por Warner Classics em 07/03/2005
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
A Royal Christmas for the Queen
Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, David Goode
Classical - Lançado por Brilliant Classics em 07/12/2022
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
100 Years of Nine Lessons & Carols
Stephen Cleobury, Choir of King's College, Cambridge, Sir David Willcocks, Philip Ledger
Classical - Lançado por Kings College Cambridge em 09/11/2018
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo