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 in a fifteen-year association with Deutsche Grammophon.
McCreesh now guest conducts many of the world’s finest ensembles in the widest range of symphonic and choral repertoire including appearances with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Bamberger Symphoniker, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Bremen Philharmonic, Prague Philharmonia, Bergen Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Japan Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Verbier Festival orchestras, Kammerorchester Basel, Berlin Konzerthausorchester, NFM Orchestra Wroc-taw, and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. From 2006-2012 he served as Artistic Director of the Wratislavia Cantans Festival in Wroclaw, and from 2013- 2016 he was Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon. He is currently Principal Guest Conductor of the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orquestra de Valencia
Recent highlights have included his return to Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal in a programme of Brahms and Mendelssohn, a revisit to the St Paul Chamber Orchestra for Handel’s Messiah, Parry and Mendelssohn with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Haydn’s Creation with the Minnesota Orchestra, and Cherubini’s Requiem with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra at the Concertgebouw.
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. He has recently conducted Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Bergen Opera and returned to Vlaamse Opera for a production of ldomeneo.
McCreesh is well-known as a passionate advocate for the importance of music education. He works regularly with youth orchestras and choirs and in the UK leads Gabrieli Roar, an ever-expanding project which connects young people, especially those in challenging areas, with classical music and the broader world of culture.
In 2010, McCreesh launched his own record label, Winged Lion. Its acclaimed and hugely varied catalogue has won numerous prizes, including Britten’s War Requiem (BBC Music Magazine 2014), Mendelssohn’s Elijah (Diapason d’Or 2013), Berlioz’s gargantuan Grande Messe des Marts (BBC Music Magazine 2012), and a reworking of an earlier classic Gabrieli programme, A New Venetian Coronation 1595 (Gramophone 2013). A recording of Purcell’s King Arthur won the BBC Music Magazine Opera award and Record of the Year in 2020. Most recently McCreesh’s recording of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius has received outstanding reviews, winning both BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone awards in the UK and a Limelight award in Australia.
