Ex Cathedra Celebrate 70th Birthday Of Founder Jeffrey Skidmore OBE With A Series Of Events

February 2021 sees founder of Ex Cathedra Jeffrey Skidmore OBE celebrate his 70th Birthday.

Jeffrey has built a reputation as one of the UK's leading choral directors and an ardent advocate of the importance of singing in people's lives. His achievements span founding and developing Ex Cathedra, with whom he has given trailblazing performances of early music, conducted world premieres by both well-established composers and new young talent, pioneered research in neglected choral works and championed music education and music for wellbeing.

Jeffrey's achievements will be celebrated with a series of events. Ex Cathedra will release a free online audio visual spectacular Ex Cathedra: Around the World on Saturday 27 February, 7.30pm. The BBC Radio 3 Early Music Show will include an extended feature and interview with Jeffrey on Sunday 28 February. And, supported by Birmingham City Council, Jeffrey will record Baroque Passion with Ex Cathedra, released via the Idagio Global Concert Hall on Sunday 12 March.

Ex Cathedra: Around the World is a free, 40-minute online concert celebrating Jeffrey's varied interests, his research trips, and the many journeys in music he has conducted with Ex Cathedra. The concert starts in 1960s America, a life-changing decade for Jeffrey in which his family emigrated to New England but he returned alone and founded Ex Cathedra. There will be music from the Latin American and French Baroque, the Italian Renaissance and Jacobean era, and traditional favourites from Sweden and Scotland.

The programme will include Stand by me, Ben E. King (1938-2015) arr. Alexander L'Estrange. Kyrie eleison (from Missa Pastoril), José Mauricio Nunes Garcia (1767-1830). Los coflades, Juan de Araujo (1648-1712). Domine ad adjuvandum, Ignazio Donati (c.1570-1638). Sankta Lucia, trad. Swedish. Te gloriosus (from Te Deum), Michel-Richard de Lalande (1657-1726). The Blessed Lamb, Edmund Hooper (c.1553-1621). Skye Boat Song, trad. Scottish arr. Jeffrey Skidmore. Blake Reimagined, Liz Dilnot Johnson (b.1964).

The concert will be streamed on the Ex Cathedra website, Facebook page (facebook.com/ExCathedra) and YouTube channel (youtube.com/ExCathedraBirmingham) on Saturday 27 February, 7.30pm.

This event is offered free of charge but Ex Cathedra are asking those who are able to make a donation in lieu of a ticket. Donations can be made via the Ex Cathedra website.

Baroque Passion will be the second online concert to celebrate the occasion. Scheduled for release on Passion Sunday, 21 March, 4pm on the Idagio Global Concert Hall, this programme will be recorded at Symphony Hall over Jeffrey's birthday weekend (Saturday 27 & Sunday 28 February 2021).

Baroque music has been at the heart of Jeffrey's career, and this concert presents a programme of sinuous, poignant Lenten music by Kuhnau, Lotti, Monteverdi and Purcell, ranging from the heart-rending as Mary weeps at the foot of the cross in Domenico Scarlatti's Stabat Mater to the optimism of Bach's "true path to life" in Komm, Jesu, komm.

Tickets, priced £12.50, are available from excathedra.co.uk. Those with tickets will have access to the concert until 11 April with no limit on viewing during this time.

On Sunday 28 February Jeffrey will join Hannah French at 2pm on the BBC Radio 3 Early Music Show to talk about his career in music and his life on tour and in the studio with Ex Cathedra. This broadcast includes a unique chance to hear excerpts from archive recordings of two very special concerts Jeffrey conducted with Ex Cathedra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in 2008 and 2009 - recreating the sound worlds of the Messiah 1784 concert that launched the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival, and the Dream of Gerontius as Elgar might have heard at its premiere at Birmingham Town Hall in 1900.

More information on all upcoming events can be found at excathedra.co.uk/diary.

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