Stephan MacLeod
Stephan MacLeod is a conductor and a singer. Born in Geneva, he’s the founder and artistic director of Gli Angeli Genève , an ensemble that specializes in repertoires from the 17th to the 19th century on period instruments, he now conducts between 40 and 50 concerts per year worldwide, a growing number of which as guest conductor with “modern” orchestras. He is also happily pursuing his singing career and teaches singing at the Haute Ecole de musique de Lausanne (HeMU).
In 2020, he will conduct and record the world premiere of Antonin Reicha’s Sinfonia Concertante for two cellos and orchestra with cellists Christophe Coin and Davit Melkonyan and Gli Angeli Genève , several Haydn symphonies and Mozart concert arias, Bach’s St. John Passion in Oslo with Barokkanerne , the St. Matthew Passion with the Philharmonic Zuidnederland , the b-minor mass on tour in France and Switzerland with Gli Angeli Genève and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio on tour on the west coast of the United States and Canada in December, with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra.
Stephan MacLeod studied the violin and the piano before turning to singing, which he first studied at the Conservatoire de Genève, then with Kurt Moll at the Cologne Musikhochschule and finally with Gary Magby at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne. His singing career began during his studies in Germany through a fruitful collaboration with Reinhard Goebel and Musica Antiqua Köln . It was then that the doors of the oratorio world opened to him and he’s regularly singing ever since on the most important stages around the world under the direction of conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe, Jordi Savall, Frieder Bernius, Franz Brüggen, Masaaki Suzuki, Michel Corboz, Gustav Leonhardt, Christophe Coin, Konrad Junghänel, Hans-Christoph Rademann, Sigiswald Kuijken, Vaclav Luks, Philippe Pierlot, Helmut Rilling, Rudolf Lutz, Raphael Pichon, Paul Van Nevel or Jos Van Immerseel, as well as with Daniel Harding or Jesus Lopez Cobos.
A singer in love with song and melody, he gives many recitals but has also been heard on opera stages, including productions by La Monnaie in Bruxelles, La Fenice in Venice, and also on the opera stages of Geneva, Toulouse, Nîmes, Bordeaux, Cologne, Potsdam, Freiburg, Girona etc.
Since 2005 and in parallel with his singing career, he has also devoted himself to conducting and is the founder of the Ensemble Gli Angeli Genève , which has been reaping the benefits of significant international recognition in recent years.
Since 2013, he has been a singing teacher at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne and shares his career between teaching, his commitments as a singer, his ensemble, and invitations to conduct – particularly Bach – more and more frequently. He regularly conducts the musicians of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande , but also the Philharmonie Zudnederland , the Nederlandse Bachvereniging , the Pacific Baroque Orchestra , etc.
Stephan MacLeod’s discography includes more than 90 CDs, many of them critically acclaimed.