English conductor and choirmaster Paul McCreesh is the founder of the Gabrieli Consort & Players. Born in London on May 24, 1960, he studied cello and graduated from Manchester University in 1981, where, the following year, he founded the instrumental and vocal early music ensemble Gabrieli Consort & Players, specializing in sacred and choral music, particularly from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. First appearing at the London Proms Festival in 1992, he conducted a concert which featured “Music for the Coronation of a Doge, 27 April 1595,” recorded two years earlier on a Gramophone Award-winning album. In 1993, he released the album Venetian Vespers featuring little-known works by Venetian composers including Monteverdi, Rigatti, Marini, Biancheri, Fasolo and Grandi. The album was the beginning of Paul McCreesh's partnership with the Archiv Produktion label - an offshoot of Deutsche Grammophon – which was dedicated to early music. The ensemble he led, Gabrieli Consort & Players - named after the 16th-century composer Andrea Gabrieli and his nephew Giovanni Gabrieli - played on period instruments and performed the original scores. Its extensive repertoire mainly comprised sacred works from various European regions, as demonstrated by recordings of Praetorius: Mass (1994), Victoria: Requiem (1995), Purcell: Harmonia Sacra (1995), Morales: Mass for the Feast of St. Isidore of Seville (1996), Gabrieli: Music for San Rocco (1996), Bach: Epiphany Mass (1998) and Schütz: Christmas Vespers (1999). Another important part of Paul McCreesh's discography includes Handel's oratorios, such as Messiah (1997), Solomon (1999), Theodora (2000) and Saul (2004). He’s also performed many indispensable works such as Bach: Magnificat / Easter Oratorio (2001), Bach: St. Matthew Passion (2003), Biber: Requiem (2004), Monteverdi: Vespers (2006), and a foray into the classical period with Mozart: Great Mass in C Minor (2006). After the florilegium A Spotless Rose (2008), Paul McCreesh created his own Winged Lion label in 2011, where he recorded the albums Mendelssohn: Elijah (2012), A New Venetian Coronation, 1595 (2012), Britten: War Requiem (2013), Handel: l'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (2015), A Rose Magnificat (2018), and An English Coronation, 1902-1953 (2019), plus the semi-operas Purcell: King Arthur (2019) and The Fairy Queen (2020) and the oratorio Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius (2024).
