Biographies

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Mark Chambers

Since leaving the Royal Northern College of Music in 1992 Mark has performed all over the world with many leading groups and conductors. Solo work has included Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Mass in B Minor with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, performances and a recording of Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 with Paul McCreesh and Bach’s St John Passion with Philip Pickett.

Mark is also in much demand as a choir and ensemble singer, working with many of the world’s leading groups; Tenebrae, Monteverdi Choir, Gabrieli Consort, The Binchois Consort, Ensemble Plus Ultra, Les Jeunes Soliste and Accentus.

Mark has made many recordings including countertenor duets by Purcell and Blow with Ryland Angel, two discs with the The English Cornett and Sackbutt Ensemble, one of Grandi solo motets and another of German Christmas music. Mark also recorded a programme of English song by Rubbra and Vaughan Williams with David Mason to commemorate the centenary of Rubbra’s birth.

David Allsopp

David Allsopp began his musical training as a chorister at Rochester Cathedral and went on to spend three years as a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge where he combined singing behind the beat with a degree in computer science. Indecision about what to do next meant that he spent an extra year at King’s as a lay clerk before moving to Westminster Cathedral Choir in 2005 where he spent nearly three years, leaving just before it was noticed that he was hardly ever there.

David sings with many consort groups and has toured extensively both in Europe and further afield. On the solo platform, he has given many performances – although he seems only to be booked for Baroque repertoire, he’s equally at home with renaissance and medieval works and with more modern composers when given the chance. Recent appearances have seen David in venues such as Karlsruhe Opera House, the Musikverein in Vienna and St John’s, Smith Square in London. Despite the vagaries of the British transport system, he continues to live in Cambridge, although he hardly ever works there.

Christopher Watson

After studying music at Exeter University, Christopher Watson held lay clerkships at Durham Cathedral, Christ Church, Oxford and Westminster Cathedral. He now lives in Oxford.

Christopher has made over 40 recordings and is a member of Tenebrae, Alamire and the Gramophone Award winning ensembles The Clerks and The Binchois Consort. He has worked with The Kronos Quartet, Fretwork and Phantasm, sings regularly with The Gabrieli Consort and has made more than 150 appearances with The Tallis Scholars.

Nigel Short

Nigel hails musically from Solihull Parish Church and went on to train at the Royal College of Music in piano, singing and composition before becoming a member in turn of Westminster Abbey Choir, The Tallis Scholars, Westminster Cathedral Choir and finally The King’s Singers. After a lengthy break of 4 years’ skiing in the Swiss Alps he came back to the music world to set up his own professional choir Tenebrae which now, along with his wife Grace and their two children keep him quite busy!

He has sung in opera (Monteverdi, Handel and Britten) all over Europe including several productions with English National Opera and also conducted several concerts with The English Concert and The Chamber Orchestra of Europe both in concert and a recording for Warner Classics. The culmination of all this musical endeavour has seen him secure a place in the vocal ensemble The Pits!

Gabriel Crouch

Gabriel Crouch is a Senior Lecturer in music at Princeton University, USA, and has been musical director of Gallicantus since its inception in 2008. He began his musical career as an eight-year-old in the choir of Westminster Abbey, where he served as Head Chorister and performed a solo at the wedding of HRH Prince Andrew and Miss Sarah Ferguson. After taking up a choral scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, he co-founded and directed the male vocal ensemble Henry’s Eight, and was offered a place in The King’s Singers in 1996. In the next eight years he made a dozen recordings with the King’s Singers on the BMG label (including a grammy nomination), and gave more than 900 performances in almost every major concert venue in the world, from New York’s Lincoln Center to the Suntory Hall in Tokyo.

In 2005 Gabriel was appointed ‘Director of Choral Activities’ at DePauw University in Indiana, since when he has maintained an active career on three fronts, as choral conductor, singer and record producer. In the last twelve months he has conducted at Choral Festivals in Washington DC (Chorworks Festival), Illinois (ECICF festival), Oregon, and at the University of Queensland’s Renaissance Choral Festival in Brisbane, Australia. In January 2008, the Gabrieli Choir’s CD The Road to Paradise, which Gabriel produced, was nominated for the title of ‘Best Choral Recording’ in the BBC Music Awards.

William Gaunt

William Gaunt was a chorister at Ripon Cathedral, later becoming a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge where he read Classics. Following two years as a Lay Clerk at Christ Church, Oxford, he took up his current post at Westminster Cathedral in 2004.

In addition to these daily choral duties, he maintains an active freelance career in choral, consort and solo singing. He has appeared and recorded with varying degrees of regularity and frequency with such groups as the Gabrieli Consort, Tenebrae, The Sixteen, The Binchois Consort and the BBC Singers. Recent solo engagements have encompassed composers from Purcell to Puccini, via Bach, Mozart, Haydn and Stainer.