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Reuben Thomas: CV

Full name

Reuben Rhys Thomas

Date of birth

13th November 1973

Nationality

British

Contact address

9 Oughtonhead Way, Hitchin, Herts. SG5 2JZ

Telephone

+44 7791 179665

Email

rrt@sc3d.org

Referees

Names provided on request

This CV was last updated on 16th October 2008. It is also available as a PDF file.

I am a baritone with a wealth of consort and choral experience at the highest level covering a wide range of forms, styles and periods. I continue to seek both to broaden my repertoire and deepen my understanding of its foundations, with a varied mix of consort, choral and solo work.

Future work

In the 2008/9 season I am continuing to work with The Armonico Consort, directed by Christopher Monks, in performances of Handel’s Dixit Dominus and a number of chamber and Christmas programmes, with Accentus directed by Laurence Equilbey, with programmes including music by Poulenc, Martin Wagner, Brahms and Fauré. In November I will appear as a soloist in a concert of English verse anthems directed by Andrew Arthur, and in a performance of Duruflé’s Messe Cum Jubilo with the Académie Vocale de Paris, directed by Iain Simcock. In December I will perform Winterreise with Iain Simcock at the American Cathedral in Paris.

On 15th December I will take up the position of Lay Clerk at Westminster Cathedral.

Recent work

2008

• In September I made the first of several scheduled appearances for the season with Accentus, the Paris-based choir recently awarded French choir of the year for the third time, directed by Laurence Equilbey, in a programme of Poulenc, Martin and Fenelon.
• In July I sang in a BBC Proms concert with Philharmonia Voices providing the semi-chorus for Messiaen’s La Transfiguration de Jésus-Christ directed by Thierry Fischer, which was repeated under Kent Nagano at the Royal Festival Hall in October. In September we performed Stravinsky’s Œdipus Rex under Esa-Pekka Salonen.
• Many concerts with the Armonico Consort directed by Christopher Monks, ranging from small consort performances of Victoria’s Requiem and Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices to large-scale performances of Handel’s Dixit Dominus, including solo performances in the Dixit Dominus, Monteverdi’s Vespers, as the Sorceress in a semi-staged Dido and Aeneas, and Hymen and Winter in The Fairy Queen, at music festivals throughout England and at the Felicja Blumenthal Festival in Tel-Aviv.
• Four-concert tour of Messiah with the Orchestra of the Age of Englightenment directed by Lawrence Cummings.
• Concert of Bach’s St John Passion with the Hanover Band in Chichester.
• 8-voice performance of Biber’s 8 part Missa Bruxellensis for Belgian radio station Klara’s festival in Izegem with the Euterpe Baroque Concert, directed by Andrew Arthur.
• Recording of music by John Rutter, directed by the composer, with the Cambridge Singers.
• Soloist in Mozart’s Coronation Mass in the St George’s, Beckenham Arts Festival, directed by Madeleine Lovell.
• Regular member of the five voice choir of Our Lady of Victories, High Street Kensington, directed by Charles Cole, and frequent appearances at The Temple Church and St Brides’, Fleet Street.

2007

• Concert of Bach’s St John Passion with the Hanover Band in Brighton and Chichester.
• Tour with the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées in their concert performances of Rossini’s Tancredi under René Jacobs in Rome, Rotterdam, Valencia, Barcelona, Valladolíd, Cologne, Paris and Brussels.
• Concerts of Five Mystical Songs by Vaughan Williams (baritone solo) with the Ensemble Vocale of the Académie Vocale de Paris directed by Iain Simcock, in Paris.
• Concert of Bach’s motets in an 8-voice ensemble with the Hanover Band directed by Andrew Arthur.
• Twenty-first anniversary concert of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
• Series of concerts of Monteverdi’s Vespers at the Flanders Festival with the Euterpe Baroque Concert, directed by Andrew Arthur.
• Many concerts with the Armonico Consort directed by Christopher Monks, performing works including the Bach St John Passion, Victoria’s Requiem and Monteverdi’s Vespers all over England, and Alessandro Scarlatti’s 16-part Dixit Dominus in Tel-Aviv.
• Recording of Handel’s Messiah with the Cambridge Singers under John Rutter.
• Première of Tarik O’Regan’s Stolen Voices with the Choir of London at the Imperial War Museum, London, commissioned by the United Nations for World Peace Day 2007.

2006

• Series of concerts of Monteverdi’s Vespers with the Euterpe Baroque Consort directed by Andrew Arthur, in Belgium.
• Recording of Compline music with the Cambridge Singers, directed by John Rutter.
• Concert of Mozart’s Requiem with the Armonico Consort directed by Christopher Monks.
• Two concerts of renaissance polyphony with the Académie Vocale de Paris directed by Iain Simcock, in Paris.
• Recitals of Dichterliebe by Schumann and Songs of Travel by Vaughan Williams in London and Cambridge.

2005

• St John Passion by Bach (Christus) in four concerts in and around Valenciennes, northern France, with La Chapelle de Hainault directed by Bruno Deletré.
• Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha (roles of Simon, Ned and Parson Alltalk) in Paris at the Théâtre Darius Milhaud, for two months.
• Series of concerts with the Euterpe Baroque Consort in Belgium of Vespers music by Handel, Monteverdi and Cavalli.
• Recitals of Songs of Travel by Vaughan Williams and The Road Goes Ever On (songs from The Lord of the Rings) by Donald Swann, in Paris and Cambridge.

2004

• Fortieth anniversary concert, of Monteverdi’s Vespers, of the Monteverdi Choir, in St Mark’s, Venice, directed by John Eliot Gardiner.
• Recitals of mélodies by Fauré, Finzi’s Let Us Garlands Bring and Somervell’s A Shropshire Lad, in Paris and Cambridge.
• Concert of Bach’s B Minor Mass at the Proms in London with the Monteverdi Choir, directed by John Eliot Gardiner.
• Recording of the choral music of Richard Rodney Bennett with the Cambridge Singers, directed by John Rutter.
• Three concerts of Handel’s Messiah (bass arias) for the Paris Choral Society.
• Professional member of the choir of the American Cathedral in Paris, singing Eucharist on Sundays, and various other services and concerts.

2003

• Six performances of Les Troyens by Berlioz with the Monteverdi Choir directed by John Eliot Gardiner at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.
• Tour of France and Spain performing Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Bach’s Magnificat with Le concert d’Astrée, directed by Emmanuel Haïm.
• Erode in a staged production of Stradella’s oratorio San Giovanni Battista in Cambridge.
• Lay Clerk at St John’s College, Cambridge under Christopher Robinson, singing seven services per week during university term, and making tours, recordings and concert performances (October 2002 to September 2003).
• Member of The Gentlemen of St John’s, a men’s voices a capella ensemble, performing at concerts, dinner engagements and balls, and making two recordings.

Education

2007–

Studying with Stuart MacIntyre, of the Royal Northern College of Music.

2001–2006

Vocal studies with David Lowe.

1992–2001

Student at St John’s College, Cambridge, vocal studies with David Lowe. Tours throughout the world, including visits to South Africa, Japan, the USA and Australia; more than twenty recordings. Choral and academic scholarships.

2001

PhD in virtual machines from Cambridge University.

1995

BA (Cantab), first class in Mathematics with Computer Science, with the second-highest mark in the university.

1987–1992

Academic scholar (major scholarship) at Winchester College, vocal studies with Charles Brett and Julian Smith.

1982–1987

Chorister at St John’s College, Cambridge (head chorister 1987), under George Guest.

Recordings and repertoire

2007

Music for the service of Evensong with the choir of Clare College, Cambridge, directed by Timothy Brown.

2007

Handel’s Messiah with the Cambridge Singers directed by John Rutter.

2007

Close harmony for Christmas with the Gentlemen of St John’s.

2006

Music for the service of Compline with the Cambridge Singers directed by John Rutter.

2004

Sea Change: choral works by Richard Rodney Bennett with the Cambridge Singers directed by John Rutter.

2003

Les Troyens by Berlioz with the Monteverdi Choir directed by John Eliot Gardiner.

2003

Works by Elgar with the choir of St John’s College, Cambridge directed by Christopher Robinson.

2002, 2003

Mass of the Children by John Rutter with the Cambridge Singers directed by the composer.

2002

Weber’s opera Oberon with the Monteverdi Choir directed by John Eliot Gardiner.

See http://rrt.sc3d.org/Music/Discography for a complete discography of over thirty recordings with groups including the Monteverdi Choir, the Cambridge Singers, and the choir of St John’s College, Cambridge.

Some solo recordings are available as MP3s at http://rrt.sc3d.org/Music/Recordings.

Other singing and music

2005

Teacher at the Académie Vocale de Paris, which raises children in the English choral tradition, rehearsing a wide range of choral music, and teaching technique to classes ranging in size from five to twenty children, whose ages varied from eight to fifteen. Regular performances, as singer, and (on one occasion) as director of the girls’ maîtrise.

Languages

• Fluent French, some Italian, and a little Dutch.
• Queen’s Silver Medal for English Speech prize for poetry recitation (Winchester College, 1992).

Other interests and occupations

2008

Invited researcher at the Université Marne-la-Vallée to work on the Vaucanson project to simulate finite state automata.

2003–

Computer systems administrator for the composer John Rutter.

1993–

Contributions to a wide range of free and open source software projects, including the Debian operating system, SoX sound processing tools, Lua programming language and the Zile text editor.

2004

Translation of Jacques Sakarovitch’s eight hundred page chef d’œuvre on the theory of automata from French into English for Cambridge University Press.

2001–2003

Programmer for the healthcare solutions provider Protechnic Exeter (also, confusingly, in Cambridge).

1999–2001

Researcher for the University of Glasgow in compiler technology, based at Microsoft Research in Cambridge.

This document was translated from L^AT_EX by H^EV^EA.