Paul Hillier
Artistic Director
[English below]
PAUL HILLIER er specialist i vokalmusik og grundlagde i 1973 den internationalt anerkendte herrekvartet The Hilliard Ensemble. I 1990 flyttede Hillier til Californien og dannede Theatre of Voices for at udforske forskellige musikalske stilarter med en mere fleksibel besætning af sangere og instrumentalister. Han har i løbet af sin karriere både virket som sanger, dirigent, festivalleder, komponist og forfatter til litteratur om musik. Hans bøger om Arvo Pärt og Steve Reich samt adskillige antologier om kormusik er udgivet på Oxford University Press og Faber. Paul Hillier’s tilknytning til Danmark startede med ansættelse som chefdirigent for Ars Nova Copenhagen (2003-2023). I 2006 modtog Paul Hillier en O.B.E. (Order of the British Empire) af den engelske dronning for sin indsats for kormusikken. I 2007 fik han Den Hvide Stjernes Orden af 4. grad for sin indsats i estisk musikliv, og vandt desuden en Grammy for Best Choral Recording med det Estiske Filharmoniske Kammerkor. I 2008 blev Paul Hillier udnævnt som kunstnerisk leder og chefdirigent for Chamber Choir Ireland, og året efter blev han inviteret til at stifte Coro Casa da Música i Porto. I 2010 vandt Paul Hillier sin anden Grammy for Theatre of Voices’ indspilning af The Little Match Girl Passion på CD’en af samme navn, hvor også Ars Nova medvirkede. I alle sammenhænge har han bestilt utallige nye værker. Paul Hillier er Ridder af Dannebrog.
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Paul Hillier is from Dorset in England and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. His career has embraced singing, conducting, composition and writing about music. Earlier in his career he was founding director of the Hilliard Ensemble, and subsequently founded Theatre of Voices. He has taught in the USA at the University of California campuses at Santa Cruz and Davis, and from 1996-2003 was Director of the Early Music Institute at Indiana University. He was Principal Conductor of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (2001-2007) and has been Chief Conductor of Ars Nova Copenhagen (2003-2023).
His close to 200 recordings, including seven solo song recitals, have earned worldwide acclaim and won numerous prizes – Diapson d’or, Grammys and Danish Radio P2 Prizes. Several have been Editor’s Choice in leading international music magazines, and they have been chosen as reference recordings in music anthologies. His books about Arvo Pärt and Steve Reich, together with numerous anthologies of choral music, are published by Oxford University Press.
In 2006 he was awarded an OBE for services to choral music. In 2007 he received the Order of the White Star of Estonia and was awarded a Grammy for Best Choral Recording with EPCC. He received another Grammy Award for the David Lang CD ’The Little Match Girl Passion’ with Theatre of Voices and Ars Nova Copenhagen. In 2008 he became Chief Conductor of the National Chamber Choir of Ireland and was appointed artistic director of the Coro Casa da Música in Porto. He has been artist in residence at Yale University’s Institute for Sacred Music, done the Springfield Music Lecture at Rhodes College, Memphis, and performed in New York at Bang-on-a-Can Marathon, at Lincoln Centre and Carnegie Hall – and Takkelloftet at Royal Opera in Copenhagen, Barbican Centre, at Perth International Arts Festival in Australia and much more.
In the 2012 Grammy Awards show Paul Hillier was competing for the 7th time in 9 years – nominated with Ars Nova Copenhagen and music by Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen . In 2020, he headed the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award Jury for Music and Opera– one of Europe’s most important music prizes.
Paul Hillier has conducted and recorded with a large number of the leading chamber choirs in Europe, has collaborated closely with the Kronos Quartet, Smith Quartet. London Sinfonietta and artists like Peter Sellars, Bobbie McFarren, Tim Rushton and Richard Alston. He has also conducted the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Netherlands Wind Ensemble, I Solisti del Vento, Swedish Wind Ensemble, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Remix, Concerto Palatino, Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen, Concerto Copenhagen, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Fretwork, Estonian State Symphony Orchestra, Copenhagen Phil, Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester, Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto and Utah Symphony Orchestra.
During his research Paul Hillier has found many unpublished gems – early and new music. This has led to an extensive collaboration with Edition-S called TOV-Edition, publishing neglected or new works, little books, pamphlets and other musical miscellany. Apart from his own compositions and arrangements, Paul Hillier is currently finishing his book ‘Follow the Sound’ on 20th -century vocal groups in the English tradition from both a music history point of view and the personal aspect of being a member of such a group.
In recent years, Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices has branched out to focusing on recording of both computer game and film scores, and next generation minimalism by for example Jóhann Jóhannsson, Peter Due, Jonas Struck, Rutger Hoedemaekers, Owen Roberts, Martin Stig Andersen and Jonas Colstrup.
Hillier’s repertoire spans from the earliest masterworks, over Mozart, early romantics and Wagner, to 20th-century works by Brecht, Pärt, Walton, Stravinsky, Stockhausen and a huge number of commissions by both established and young international composers. Most noteworthy perhaps his decade long collaborations with Arvo Pärt and Steve Reich, but recent collaborations also include Galina Grigorjeva (Ukraine), BOAC: Michael Gordon - David Lang – Julia Wolfe (US), John Luther Adams (US), Howard Skempton (UK), Nina Janjgava (Georgia), Gavin Bryars (UK), Bernd Franke (Germany), Gabriel Jackson (UK), Kaija Saariaho (Finland), Heiner Goebbels (Germany), Helena Tulve (Estonia), Caroline Shaw (US), Harrison Birtwistle (UK), Arnannguaq Porborg Gerstrøm (Greenland), and from Denmark among others: Fuzzy, Line Tjørnhøj, John Frandsen, Peter Bruun, Signe Lykke and Peter Navarro-Alonso.
“Everything Paul Hillier touches turns to choral gold.”
— James R. Oestreich, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Publications
Books
Arvo Pärt | Oxford University Press, London & New York, 1997
Steve Reich — Writings on Music | edited with an introduction by Paul Hillier, Oxford University Press, London & New York, 2002
On Pärt | with photographs by Tõnu Tormis (bilingual edition in Estonian & English), Theatre of Voices Edition, Copenhagen, 2005
John Cage and the Music of Always — 79 mesostics re and not re John Cage | Theatre of Voices Edition, Copenhagen, 2007
Essays & Articles
Steve Reich in Conversation with Paul Hillier | in crosscurrents ed. Felix Meyer, Carol J. Oja, & Wolfgang Rathert, Anne C. Schreffler, Paul Sacher Foundation & Boydell Press, Basel, 2014
(100 words for John Cage) | in John Cage Was, James Klosty Wesleyan U. P., 2014
The Nature of Chorus | in The Cambridge Companion to Choral Music, ed. André de Quadros, Cambridge University Press, 2012
Close Encounters with Estonia | in Our Estonia (bilingual edition in Estonian & English) Tallinn, 2008
Observations on the performance of Arvo Pärt’s choral music | in Arvo Pärt - Collected Choral Works, Universal Edition, Vienna, 2008
I felt a controlling hand taking over on Stockhausen’s ‘Stimmung’ | in The Guardian, September 27, 2007
William Dyce and Ancient Church Music | in William Dyce and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision, ed. Jennifer Melville, Aberdeen 2006
Bemerkungen zur Aufführungspraxis der Chorwerke Arvo Pärts (in German) | in Arvo Pärt - Die Musik des Tintinnabuli-Stils, ed. Hermann Conen, Köln, 2006
Dappled Things | in James Hugonin (painter), De La Warr Pavilion & Baltic Centre, 2006
English Monophony | in A Performer’s Guide to Medieval Music, ed. Ross Duffin, Indiana University Press, 2000
Singing Josquin | in A Josquin Anthology, ed. Ross Duffin, Oxford University Press, London & New York, 1999
Framing the life of the words | in Companion to Medieval & Renaissance Music, ed. Tess Knighton & David Fallows, J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1992
Arvo Pärt | in Magister Ludi Musical Times, pp. 134-7, March 1989
Musical Works (compositions, arrangements, anthologies)
Carols from the Old and New Worlds | composed and arranged by Paul Hillier, Theatre of Voices Edition, Copenhagen, 2013
Le Beau Ballet d’Amour | An Anthology of French Chansons, ed. Paul Hillier, Antico Edition, Devon, 1991
I sing of a maiden | Paul Hillier (composer), Oxford University Press, London & New York, 1990
There is no rose | Paul Hillier (composer), Fennica Gerhmann, Helsinki, 2003
The Catch Book | selected & edited, with introduction, by Paul Hillier, Oxford University Press, London & New York, 1987
English Romantic Partsongs | selected & edited, with introduction, by Paul Hillier, Oxford University Press, London & New York, 1986
300 Years of English Partsongs | selected & edited, with introduction, by Paul Hillier, Faber Music, London, 1983