Ex Cathedra is a leading UK choir and Early Music ensemble with a repertoire that reaches from the 12th to the 21st centuries. We are known for our passion for seeking out the best, the unfamiliar and the unexpected in the choral repertoire and for giving dynamic performances underpinned by detailed research.
Founded in 1969 by Jeffrey Skidmore, the group has grown into a unique musical resource, comprising specialist chamber choir, vocal Consort, period-instrument orchestra and a thriving education programme, aiming to explore, research and commission the finest choral music and to set the highest standards for excellence in performance and training.
We present a series of concerts in Birmingham, where we are a resident ensemble at Town Hall & Symphony Hall, across the Midlands, and in London. We also enjoy invitations to appear at festivals and concert series across the UK and abroad. There have been collaborations with Fretwork viol consort, The City Musick, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, Concerto Palatino, Birmingham Opera Company, Sinfonia New York, the CBSO, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Quebecois dance company Cas Public, the Shakespeare Institute, and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
‘Cathedra’ is the name for a bishop’s throne, and a cathedral is the building that houses that throne. When Jeffrey Skidmore and one of the founding members of the choir were choosing a name for the new group in 1969, they chose Ex Cathedra because it literally means ‘from the throne’ or in English usage ‘with authority’. At the time, Jeffrey and several members of the choir sang at Birmingham Cathedral. The pun was attractive, but researching and understanding the repertoire so that it can be performed with authority, style and passion has been a guiding principle since those first performances.

Jeffrey Skidmore’s reputation as one of the UK’s leading choral directors and an ardent advocate of the importance of singing in people’s lives today is rooted in his work with Ex Cathedra, the ensemble he founded over 45 years ago.

Jeffrey’s driving passion has been to refresh and reinvigorate the choral repertoire and to make it accessible to as many people as possible. He and Ex Cathedra have long been known for exciting and innovative but always attractive programming, underpinned by thorough research and preparation.

Jeffrey is a pioneer in the field of research and performance of choral works of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, both in the old and new worlds, and has won wide acclaim for his recordings of French and Latin American Baroque music with Ex Cathedra.

With Ex Cathedra, Jeffrey has commissioned more than thirty new works and conducted many world premieres by composers including Sally Beamish, Fyfe Hutchins, Gabriel Jackson, John Joubert, James MacMillan, Roxanna Panufnik, Alec Roth, Daryl Runswick, Peter Sculthorpe, Philip Shepherd, Peter Wiegold and Roderick Williams.

He has also worked with other ensembles including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Aalborg Sinfoniorkester, the Irish Baroque Orchestra, Sinfonia New York, and the BBC Singers.

In the field of opera he has worked with Birmingham Opera Company; Welsh National Opera; Marc Minkowski and David McVicker on the 2004 production of Semele at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris; and has given the first performances in modern times of the French Baroque operas Zaïde by Royer and Isis by Lully.

Jeffrey is Artistic Director of the Early Music programme at Birmingham Conservatoire, and is a regular contributor to the choral programme at Dartington International Summer School and to a wide range of choral workshops and summer schools at home and abroad.

Mark Bennett won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, London, where he studied with Michael Laird. Whilst there he was awarded the Royal College Brass prize and also became interested in the natural trumpet and baroque performance practice. Since then he has been involved in many different types of music making, including playing principal trumpet with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Between 1990 and 2000, Mark was a professor at the Royal Collage of Music, teaching both modern and baroque trumpet. He has performed and toured extensively with many period instrument orchestras and ensembles, including the English Concert, London Brass and Baroque Brass of London, as well as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and The English Baroque Soloists. He has worked with some of the world's leading conductors, including Esa Pekka Salonen, Claus Tennstedt, Franz Bruggen, Sir Roger Norrington, William Christie, Ton Koopman Iona Brown, Christopher Hogwood, Sir Simon Rattle, Philippe Herreweghe, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner Mark played lead trumpet in the West-End production of Cats for the last 2 years of its London run, and has also played on over one hundred feature films, including Shakespeare in Love and Stargate.
Mark has made many solo recordings on both the modern and the baroque trumpets. These include concertos by Haydn, Fasch, Vivaldi and Telemann, all with Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert for Deutsche Gramophone archive. He has recorded 2 solo recordings with the Purcell Quartet: A Purcell collection and Biber’s Sonatae Tam Aris Quam Audis Sevientes. Mark has recorded Bach's second Brandenburg Concerto seven times: the first time when with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields he was just 21, and subsequently with enembles including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Hanover Band and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. For ten years Mark was a member of London Brass, where he recorded many solo brass pieces. Including works by Marini, Gabrieli and Purcell.
In the last ten years Mark has built a fruitful relationship with Norway, working with the Norwegian Baroque Orchestra, the Oslo Baroque Orchestra and as soloist with Terje Tønnesen and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. He has also appeared in the Oslo Chamber Music Festival playing Bach's second Brandenburg Concerto. Conducting has also become a more important part of his musical life, with invidations to lead Orchestras and wind bands in Norway such as NRK Radio Orchestra, MiN Ensemble, Den Norske Blaseensemblet and Kongelige Norske Marinenes Musikkorps amongst others.