Owen Rees - Director

Owen Rees is both an acclaimed choral director and an internationally recognised scholar of Renaissance music, particularly from Spain, Portugal, and England. His scholarship consistently informs his performances in exciting and revelatory ways. He has brought to the concert hall and recording studio substantial repertories of magnificent Renaissance and Baroque music, including many previously unknown or little-known works, and he has played a leading role in revealing the glories of Portuguese Renaissance polyphony to an international audience. His interpretations have been acclaimed as ‘revelatory and even visionary’ (BBC Music Magazine) and as ‘rare examples of scholarship and musicianship combining to result in performances that are both impressive and immediately attractive to the listener’ (Gramophone).

In addition to his work with Contrapunctus, which he founded in 2010, he directs the Choir of The Queen's College, Oxford. His academic posts are as Professor in Music at the University of Oxford and Fellow of The Queen’s College. He has conducted at festivals worldwide, and is in demand internationally as a leader of workshops on the performance of Renaissance polyphony. His numerous CD recordings encompass a wide variety of choral repertory from the Renaissance to contemporary music, and his work has three times been nominated for a Gramophone Award.

His published work as a scholar includes studies and editions of the principal Spanish composers of the ‘Golden Age’ (Morales, Guerrero, and Victoria), the Portuguese Renaissance masters Cardoso, Lobo, and Magalhães, and the great Tudor composers Tallis and Byrd. He has recently published a book about the Victoria Requiem for Cambridge University Press.