Paul Agnew

Paul Agnew was born in Glasgow in 1964, and read music as a Choral Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the Consort of Musicke, the Tallis Scholars, the Sixteen and the Gothic Voices, before embarking on a solo career in the early 1990s.

Closely associated with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew has performed the roles Jason in Charpentier's Medee and Hippolyte in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, as well as appearing on the recordings of La Descente d'Orphee aux Enfers and Les Plaisirs de Versaille, both by Marc-Antoine Charpentier; Grands Motets by Jean-Philippe Rameau; Acis & Galatea by Georg-Frideric Handel, and Rameau's Grands Motets (Gramophone's Best Early Music Vocal award in 1995). In 2007 Agnew conducted Les Arts Florissants in a performance of Vivaldi. He is the first person other than Christie to conduct the ensemble.

Paul Agnew's other recordings include Mozart's Coronation Mass and Bach Cantatas with Ton Koopman, Bach's St. John Passion with Stephen Cleobury (also on video), Bach's St. Markus Passion with Roy Goodman, Bach's B Minor Mass and Cantatas with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ with Philippe Herreweghe, Handel's Solomon with Paul McCreesh, Bach's Christmas Oratorio with Pickett and Rameau's Dardanus with Pinchgut Opera. Also, he has played the title travesty role in Rameau's "Platée", which has been released on DVD.