BIOGRAPHY

Quintin Beer is a choral director and prize-winning conductor, based in London. He enjoys a synergistic approach to music making, working with a group’s collective will to produce something greater than the sum of its parts. His aim is to lift music off the page and into something much more intangible and deeply felt. Known for his playful and imaginative rehearsal manner, Quintin's distinctive personality engenders inspirational musical moments amongst amateurs and professionals alike.

Informed by his German heritage, with which he is very much in touch, Quintin has a focused interest in text and language, as well as instinctive predisposition for Teutonic repertoire. At the same time, he is at home with all classical musical styles and genres.
 
During the 2021-22 season, Quintin will direct a concert of French and English Baroque music with Les Pages et Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles in the Royal Chapel at the Palace of Versailles.

In October 2020, Quintin was appointed Director of Music at St Peter's College Oxford, succeeding Jeremy Summerly and Edward Higginbottom. He was also appointed Associate Conductor of Ex Cathedra in September 2021.

Quintin is Director of Music at St Cuthbert’s Church, Earl's Court and Musical Director of Saffron Walden Choral Society. In addition, he is the Choral Director at the Junior Department of the Royal Academy of Music. He was previously Associate Musical Director of Pegasus Chamber Choir, Artistic Director of University of London Chamber Choir, Musical Director of Yateley Choral Society and was the director of the monthly 'Evensong in the City' series at St Bartholomew the Great

Quintin gained his MA in Choral Conducting from the Royal Academy of Music, studying under Patrick Russill and graduating with distinction in July 2019. He was awarded the DipRAM, the Academy's own premier-prix for an outstanding performance in a final recital. At his graduation ceremony, Quintin was the recipient of the Academy's Foundation Award, a prize for excellent studentship and all-round contribution to the institution.

Recent career highlights include winning the Best Interpretation of a French Baroque Piece at the International Competition for Young Conductors in Paris in October 2019, winning second prize at the Dima International Music Competition in Cluj, Romania and gaining a place on the Jury’s List of the 2019 World Choral Conducting Competition. He was awarded a fellowship to the eminent Yale School of Music 2019 Summer School programme in Norfolk, Connecticut under the direction of Simon Carrington. He was made Associate Conductor of the Brandenburg Choral Festival in November 2019 and has previously been contracted by the Rundfunkchor Berlin.

In July 2019, Quintin was invited to guest conduct the Lacock Scholars in a programme of sixteenth-century Spanish and Flemish polyphony at Westminster Abbey and in October 2019, conducted the Choeur de l'Orchestre de Paris in movements from Rachmaninov's Vespers and a new commission by Cecilia McDowall.

Quintin is frequently invited to conduct choirs, choral societies and orchestras in and around London. Amongst his recent conducting performances are Messisah with Yateley Choral Society and Mass for Double Choir with Pegasus Chamber Choir at a sell-out concert for the Brandenburg Choral Festival at St Katharine Cree in the City of London. Previously, he has conducted Vivaldi’s Gloria and Bach motets at St Martin-in-the-Fields (Pegasus and Brandenburg Baroque Soloists), Copland In the Beginning and a lunchtime recital of Victoria, Mendelssohn and Britten with Mousai at St James’s Church, Piccadilly (Mousai) and Buxtehude Klag-Lied as part of the Royal Academy of Music’s 2018 Festival of Space. In September 2019, he conducted the Royal Academy of Music Chamber Choir in concert at Neresheim Abbey in Germany. Prior to this, Quintin has conducted the Rodolfus Choir live on Radio 3, and has assisted on Shadwell Opera and work-shopped with the BBC Singers.

In March 2019, in a creative collaboration with the Oxford-based charity Cantata Dramatica and the composer’s grandson, Quintin re-surfaced and made the first recording of the oratorio Andromeda written by Cyril Bradley Rootham in 1903-5.
 
A music graduate of St John’s College Cambridge, Quintin became an Assistant Conductor for the University in 2013, conducting concerts and fully-staged performances of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (including two in one day!) and Mozart’s The Magic Flute. He has studied orchestral conducting with Peter Stark and Cathal Garvey and has previously assisted Nicholas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra.
 
Quintin remains very active as a Baritone, frequently singing as a deputy in the choirs of St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Cathedral, St George’s Chapel Windsor and other London churches and cathedrals. During his Masters degree, he sang with The Royal Academy of Music Chamber Choir and previously in the choirs of St John’s College Cambridge, St Thomas Fifth Avenue and variously under the direction of Christopher Robinson, David Hill, Ralph Allwood, Andrew Nethsingha and the late John Scott.
 
Quintin is keen to share these experiences with others. He was Musician-in-Residence at North London Collegiate School until 2017 and continues to work on the annual Rodolfus Foundation Choral Courses (previously Eton Choral Courses) since 2012.
 
Quintin is the recipient of the Stanley Vann Scholarship and the Alan Kirby and Irene Burcher Awards from the Royal Academy of Music. He is grateful to the Nicholas Boas Charitable Trust, the Royal College of Organists and the St John’s College Cambridge Choir Association for their generosity in supporting his Masters Degree.