BIOGRAPHY

Quintin Beer is a choral director, prize-winning conductor, and versatile musician known for his collaborative approach to music-making. He thrives on the collective energy of a group, drawing out something greater than the sum of its parts, and bringing music vividly off the page through an imaginative, playful, and deeply engaged rehearsal style.
He is Director of Music at St Peter’s College, Oxford, a role he has held since 2021, and Musical Director of Saffron Walden Choral Society, where he has led an ambitious programme of large-scale choral-orchestral works, partnerships with professional ensembles, and community-facing projects at Saffron Hall and beyond.

Quintin studied music at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he was a Choral Scholar, before completing an MA in Choral Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music with Patrick Russill, graduating with Distinction in 2019. He was awarded the DipRAM for an outstanding final recital and the Foundation Award for excellence and contribution to Academy life. In 2024, he was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of his achievements and ongoing contribution to the profession.

Recent highlights include preparing the adult chorus for Jonathan Dove’s Uprising at Saffron Hall, winner of the 2025 Ivors Novello Award for Best Community Project; chorus-mastering the BBC Singers for Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly at the Barbican; and preparing the BBC Singers for Fauré’s Requiem with the Aurora Orchestra. He has also guest conducted the Epiphoni Consort for its annual Good Friday concert, and conducted Bach’s St John Passion with the Brook Street Band. Upcoming engagements include Handel’s Messiah at Saffron Hall with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Opera and staged work form an important part of Quintin’s conducting life. He has served as Chorus Master for Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Verdi’s Falstaff at the St Endellion Festival, returning in 2026 for Puccini’s Turandot. Earlier work at the festival included Britten’s Peter Grimes, directed by Rory Kinnear and conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. In 2024 he was Assistant Conductor for Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at the Grange Festival with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

As an orchestral conductor, Quintin has worked with ensembles including the Chameleon Arts Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Dresden Sinfonietta, Hertfordshire Chamber Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and East Anglian Chamber Orchestra, conducting repertoire ranging from Handel and Haydn to Elgar, Britten, Mahler, and Copland. Internationally, he has won prizes at conducting competitions in Greece, France, and Romania, and held a fellowship at the Yale Summer School under Simon Carrington.

A committed advocate for new music, Quintin released his debut recording, Fresh stone: Music by Piers Connor Kennedy, with the Choir of St Peter’s College, Oxford, in 2025. He has also championed new commissions in his work with Saffron Walden Choral Society, including Roderick Williams’s Sing Joyfully, written for the choir’s 150th anniversary and winner of Making Music’s 2023 Best Music Creator Award for a Voluntary Organisation.

Alongside his conducting, Quintin remains active as a baritone, regularly singing with leading cathedral and church choirs across London. His experience as a performer continues to inform his work on the podium, shaping a musical approach rooted in vocal instinct, ensemble awareness, and a love of expressive communication.

Quintin is also a dedicated teacher and mentor. He has tutored on the Rodolfus Foundation Choral Courses (formerly Eton Choral Courses) for many years, having first taken part in them himself, and has taught Musicianship at the Royal Academy of Music Junior Department and Choral Conducting at the University of Oxford.

​His work has been generously supported by the Stanley Vann Scholarship, the Alan Kirby and Irene Burcher Awards from the Royal Academy of Music, and the Nicholas Boas Charitable Trust, Royal College of Organists, and St John’s College Cambridge Choir Association.