Born in Farnbourgh, England, on February 6, 1957, Matthew Best studied singing at King's College, Cambridge, and the National Opera Studio, London, where he honed his bass voice. In 1973, he founded his own ensemble, Corydon Singers, and pursued a parallel career as a choral conductor and singer. After making his debut in Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream at the Aldenburgh Festival in 1980, he joined the company of Covent Garden's Royal Opera House, winning the Decca-Ferrier Award in 1982. Until 1986, he performed numerous roles in the classical and modern opera repertoires, and took part in the premiere of Berio's Un re in ascolto in 1989. In 1995, he toured with John Eliot Gardiner in his production of Beethoven's opera Fidelio, before turning to conducting. With the creation in 1991 of a second ensemble, the Corydon Orchestra, Matthew Best continued his work with the Hyperion label, begun with the English National Opera. He specializes in choral and sacred music, with some thirty recordings featuring works by Bruckner, Vaughan Williams, Fauré, Britten, Rachmaninov, Berlioz, Mendelessohn, Beethoven, Elgar, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Brahms and contemporaries Michael Tippett and Robert Simpson. In 2015, Best turned to teaching voice at Manchester's Royal Northern College of Music. He died on May 10, 2025 at the age of 68.
![Gluck: Alceste, Wq. 44 (Sung in French) [Live Recordings 1981]](https://cdn-images.dzcdn.net/images/cover/ffddbb79b867cae64ab333b5553a4aee/120x120-000000-80-0-0.jpg)
