Paul McCreesh is the founder and Artistic Director of the Gabrieli Consort & Players which he established in 1982 and with whom he has toured world-wide and made many award-winning recordings. McCreesh is well-known for the energy and passion that he brings to his music-making, and he is especially enthusiastic about working with young musicians, broadening access to classical music. He works regularly with youth orchestras and choirs and is active in building new educational initiatives whenever possible.
McCreesh has conducted many of the major orchestras and choirs across the globe, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Bergen Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Verbier Festival Orchestra and Berlin Konzerthausorchester. McCreesh also enjoys regular and ongoing collaborations with Saint Paul and Basel Chamber Orchestras. In 2018-19 he conducts Elgar and Brahms for Kammerakademie Potsdam, Mendelssohn and Britten for Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, and Handel for Symphonique de Montréal, alongside appearances with Filharmonia Poznanska and MDR Radio Symphony.
From 2013-2016 he was Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the Gulbenkian Orchestra (Lisbon) with whom he conducted a wide range of music from the classical period through the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing in particular on symphonic repertoire, oratorio and opera in concert, working closely with the world-renowned Gulbenkian Choir.
McCreesh has established a strong reputation in the opera house and has conducted productions at the Teatro Real Madrid, Royal Danish Opera, Opera Comique, Vlaamse Opera and at the Verbier Festival. Most recently he conducted Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Bergen Opera, and returned to Vlaamse Opera for a production of Idomeneo.
In 2011 McCreesh launched his own record label, Winged Lion, in collaboration with the Gabrieli Consort & Players, Signum Classics and the Wratislavia Cantans Festival, where he was Artistic Director from 2006-2012. To date they have made ten recordings, most recently A Rose Magnificat, music dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary from the Renaissance to the present day, released in May 2018 and lauded by critics: “Captivating … imaginative … ambitious” (Financial Times), “the superlative Gabrieli Consort give a formidably encompassing performance” (BBC Music Magazine), “pristine: carefully balanced and always cleanly tuned” (Gramophone). Other highlights include Haydn The Seasons, Britten War Requiem (BBC Music Magazine Award 2014), Mendelssohn Elijah (Diapason d’Or Award 2013), Berlioz’s gargantuan Grande Messe des Morts (BBC Award 2012), and a reworking of his earlier Gabrieli disc, A New Venetian Coronation 1595 (Gramophone Award 2013).