‘An undoubted jewel in Britain’s choral scene’ (BBC Music Magazine), the Choir of The Queen’s College Oxford is among the finest and most active university choirs in the UK. Its extensive concert schedule involves appearances across the UK and abroad, including work with the Academy of Ancient Music, the Britten Sinfonia, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra. It regularly tours abroad, and concert tours have included Taiwan, China, the USA, Sri Lanka, Italy, Sardinia, Portugal, Spain, Frans, the Low Countries, and Germany. The choir’s wide-ranging repertory includes a rich array of Renaissance and Baroque music and contemporary works. The group broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio, and during the academic year it provides the music for regular services in the splendid Baroque chapel of The Queen’s College. Among its recordings on Signum Classics, Carlos from Queen’s enjoyed nine weeks in the Specialist Classical Charts, was ‘Drive Feature Album of the Week’ on Classic FM, and was a Telegraph Christmas pick; A New Heaven (2017) and The House of the Mind (2018) both went straight to no. 1 in the Specialist Classical Chart in their first week of sales; and 2019 was the release of a recording of music by the great Tudor composer John Taverner, which received a Diapason d’or and was described by Diapason as ‘a splendid triumph of English choral art at its best’. Queen’s Choir has also recorded for film in the famous Abbey Road Studios, and appears on teh Grammy-nominated soundtrack of the Warner-Brothers film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Owen Rees is both performer and scholar, his scholarship consistently informing his performances. Through his extensive work as a choral director, 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 from Spain and Portugal. His interpretations of these repertories have been acclaimed as ‘rare examples of scholarship and musicianship combining to result in performances that are both impressive and immediately attractive to the listener’, and he has been described as ‘one of the most energetic and persuasive voices’ in this field. He has conducted at festivals worldwide, and is increasingly busy as a leader of workshops on performance of Renaissance polyphony. He has broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and on Portuguese, Spanish, and Norwegian radio. He has released CD recordings on the Hyperion, Signum, and Avie labels to consistently high critical acclaim and his work has been shortlisted for the Gramophone Early Music Award.
Owen Rees began his academic and conducting career as Organ Scholar at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, studying with Peter le Huray and Iain Fenlon. After a period as College Lecturer in Music at St Peter’s College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, he joined the Music Department at the University of Surrey, where he was promoted to the post of Reader. In 1997 he returned to Oxford, where—in addition to his posts of Fellow in Music at The Queen’s College and Director of Music of the Choir of The Queen's College—he is Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College and a Professor in the Faculty of Music. His numerous published studies include work on the Spanish composers Cristóbal de Morales and Francisco Guerrero and the English composer William Byrd.