Paul Agnew

Scottish tenor and countertenor Paul Agnew is also known as a conductor, becoming William Christie's assistant musical director for Baroque music ensemble Les Arts Florissants. Born in Glasgow on April 11, 1964, he trained as a chorister at Oxford's Magdalen College, specializing in early music repertoire with such ensembles as Ex Cathedra, The Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen and The Musick Consort. Around 1994, he began a long and fruitful collaboration with the early music ensemble Les Arts Florissants, founded by William Christie, who took him on as a tenor and then countertenor, before training him as a conductor in preparation for his succession. Working alongside Christie, Paul Agnew has built up a vast repertoire in French Baroque music, notably in opera with Rameau's Grammy-nominated Les Fêtes d'Hébé (1997), as well as other works by Charpentier, Campra, and François Couperin, as well as Monteverdi's Il Vespro Della Beata Vergine in 1998. He has also taken part in numerous recordings of sacred works from the Renaissance and Baroque periods including performing a series of cantatas in 2000 with Ton Koopman, Philip Pickett, Robert King, Fabio Biondi, and John Eliot Gardiner. He also worked with Emmanuell Haïm (Purcell's Dido and Aeneas in 2003 and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in 2004), Stephen Cleobury (J. S. Bach's Johannes-Passion / St. John Passion in 2008), Thomas Dunford, and Anthony Rooley. His repertoire continued to expand in both recitals of songs composed by Beethoven (2001) and Vivaldi operas with the Modo Antiquo ensemble conducted by Federico Maria Sardelli (2005-2007). He has also recorded other recitals including Purcell: The Food of Love (2009) and Les Maîtres du Motet (2018). In 2013, William Christie entrusted him with the direction of Les Arts Florissants for certain performances and recordings, a first in the ensemble's history. In this capacity, Paul Agnew sang and conducted two series of Italian madrigals, the first devoted to Monteverdi in three volumes (2014-2015) and the second based on Gesualdo's six books (2019-2023). In 2024, he began a cycle devoted to Bach's cantatas with A Life in Music, Vol. 1: Arnstadt & Mühlhausen (1703-1708), which rose to number 17 on the UK Classical Albums chart and number 13 in France.

Please enable Javascript to view this page competely.