Biography
JEREMY BACKHOUSE is one of Britain’s leading conductors of amateur choirs. He began his musical career in Canterbury Cathedral where he was Senior Chorister, and later studied music at Liverpool University. He spent five years as Music Editor at the Royal National Institute of Blind People, where he was responsible for the transcription of print music into Braille. In 1986 he joined EMI Records as a Literary Editor and from April 1990 combined his work as a Consultant Editor for EMI Classics and later Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers with his career as a freelance conductor.
Since winning the prestigious Sainsbury’s Choir of the Year competition in 1988, the Vasari Singers have performed regularly on the South Bank and at St John’s, Smith Square in London, as well as in the cathedrals of Canterbury, Chichester, Winchester, Hereford, Ely, Peterborough and Westminster Abbey. Jeremy and the Vasari Singers have broadcast frequently on BBC Radios 3 and 4, and have a discography of nineteen CDs on the EMI Eminence, Guild and Signum labels. His recording with the Vasari Singers of the Howells’ Requiem and Frank Martin Mass was nominated for a Gramophone Award in 1995. Recent reviews of their two CDs of the choral works of Marcel Dupré has been universally laudatory, Gramophone describing the choir as “one of the best small choral groups of our time”. Both have received Gramophone’s ‘Editor’s Choice’ accolade. In 2006, Jeremy’s recording with the Vasari Singers of the Vaughan Williams Mass in G minor was chosen as the Top Recommendation on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Building a Library’ programme.
Jeremy is totally committed to contemporary music and to the commissioning of new works. He and Vasari have commissioned over 20 new works in their recent history, from small anthems, to works of the grandest scale: the most recent examples being an 80-minute oratorio by Francis Pott entitled A Cloud of Unknowing (2006), and a glorious Requiem from Gabriel Jackson (2008).
In January 1995, he was appointed Chorus Master of the Vivace Chorus (formerly the Guildford Philharmonic Choir), working closely with conductors such as Jonathan Willcocks, En Shao and Vernon Handley, as well as regularly conducting concerts with the choir and orchestra alike. 1995 and 1996 saw him conducting the Guildford Philharmonic in the highly popular outdoor Summer Festival concerts in Shalford Park, complete with firework display. Jeremy has presented some ambitious programmes, conducting performances of Howells’ Hymnus Paradisi, Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater, Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony (No.2) and Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony. In May 2003 he conducted a thrilling performance of Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand” (No.8) and most recently (November 2008) a stunning performance of Verdi's Requiem.
From September 1998 to December 2004, Jeremy was the Music Director of the Wooburn Singers, only the third conductor in the distinguished 30-year history of the choir, following Richard Hickox and Stephen Jackson. With them, in October 1999, he conducted a performance of Bach’s B minor Mass with the Hanover Band. He toured with them to Geneva in 2000, Italy in 2002 and Spain in 2004. In 2002, Jeremy conducted the City of London Sinfonia (CLS) in an all-Handel concert to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. He has also prepared the choir for performances with the CLS and Richard Hickox.
Jeremy has been conductor of the BBC Club Choir and the Kent Youth Choir, and has worked with many other choirs, including the BBC Singers, Trinity College of Music Choir and Chamber Choir, the Brighton Festival Chorus (preparing for Carl Davies), the London Choral Society/the London Chorus (preparing for Ron Corp) and the Philharmonia Chorus (preparing for Sir Colin Davis and Leonard Slatkin).
In January 2009 Jeremy took up the post of Music Director of the Salisbury Community Choir, a 180-strong non-auditioned choir. His first major engagement with them will be the opening concert of the Salisbury International Arts Festival, in Salisbury Cathedral on Saturday 23 May, premiering a vast new work by Bob Chilcott called the Salisbury Vespers.