Chris Watson (tenor)
Monteverdi Vespers of 1610
Bristol Cathedral
Saturday, 20th March 2010
Christopher Watson studied music at Exeter University, and went on to hold lay clerkships at
Durham, Oxford and latterly Westminster Cathedrals. He now lives in Oxford and divides his time between solo and consort work.
Recent solo performances have included Bach's Christmas Oratorio with Le Concert Lorrain, and Purcell's
Ode for St Cecilia in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with the Gabrieli Consort. He has collaborated with Trevor
Pinnock in concerts of Purcell Welcome Odes in the Handel Festival in Halle, and has given many performances of
the Evangelist role in Bach's St John and St Matthew Passions - most recently in Christ Church Cathedral Oxford,
in the Cathedral Church of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City and Manchester Cathedral. In 2007 he made his debut at Carnegie Hall
in New York with Theatre of Voices and Paul Hillier, giving the World Premiere of David Lang's Little Match Girl Passion,
which subsequently won a Pulitzer Prize. He has performed the Little Match Girl Passion all over the world, including the
Perth Festival in Australia and the Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuata in Mexico, and the Theatre of Voices recording
of the piece won a Grammy Award in Los Angeles in January.
Other engagements include the first performance of The Stones of the Arch by Gavin Bryars with the Kronos Quartet, Monteverdi's
Vespers in Tuscany with Philippe Herreweghe and in Wroclaw and Venice with Paul McCreesh, and Mendelssohn's Elijah
in Wells Cathedral. He has made more than 50 recordings, including several discs of Dufay and Josquin, the Schütz
Resurrection History with Ars Nova Copenhagen, Lassus motets and Penitential Psalms with Philippe Herreweghe,
the Bach Motets with Sette Voci and the complete Cantiones Sacrae of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd with Alamire,
with whom he gave a series of concerts last year to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the coronation of King Henry VIII.
With Theatre of voices he has given performances of Stockhausen's Stimmung, and with them this year is touring a program of
Arvo Pärt, which will be recorded for Harmonia Mundi in the summer. He has made several appearances at the Proms in London
and has performed in Cathedrals and concert halls all over the world, from San Marco in Venice and Notre Dame in Paris to the
Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Sydney Opera House and the Lincoln Center in New York.
Christopher is a member of The Tallis Scholars, with whom he has made more than 200 appearances, Tenebrae, Gallicantus and the
Gramophone Award winning ensembles The Clerks' Group and The Binchois Consort. He has worked with the viol consorts Fretwork and
Phantasm and sings regularly with Polyphony, the Soloists of Collegium Vocale Gent and the Netherlands Bach Society.
He also directs a chamber choir in Oxford, Sospiri, and with them has made 5 recordings. They perform concerts regularly in Oxford,
along with a termly Latin Vespers in Merton College Chapel, and are currently planning their third French tour and their first American one.