Rory McCleery

Scotland-born Rory McCleery has notably gained renown as both a choral director, with the virtuoso Marian Consort, and as a solo countertenor. McCleery was born in Edinburgh and had his first professional musical experiences there as a chorister at St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral. He attended Oxford University, earning double honors as both an organ scholar and a student of musicology at St. Peter's College, where he also sang in the choir. He went on for a Master's degree in musicology at Oxford, graduating with Distinction. McCleery has also undertaken doctoral studies on the French Renaissance composer Jean Mouton. McCleery founded the ten-voice Marian Consort while still an undergraduate at St. Peter's, building it into an ensemble that has toured across the U.K. and continental Europe in addition to giving concerts at its Oxford home base. The Marian Consort has appeared at such venues as the Snape Maltings Concert Hall, the Chapelle Royale de Versailles, and the Concertgebouw in Bruges, performing one- or two-voice-per-part readings of such works as the Passions of Bach, Handel's Messiah and Dixit Dominus, Purcell's Ode to St. Cecilia, Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, and Britten's Abraham and Isaac. As a countertenor, McCleery has performed with most of the major English Baroque groups, including the Dunedin Consort, the Monteverdi Choir, the Sixteen, the Tallis Scholars, Contrapunctus, the Academy of Ancient Music, and the Cardinall's Musick, as well as Le Concert d'Astrée in France. With the Marian Consort he has recorded eight albums for the Delphian label, beginning with 2012's Music from the Dow Partbooks. In 2018, McCleery and the Consort released In Sorrow's Footsteps, featuring contemporary works by Gabriel Jackson and James MacMillan bookending Renaissance pieces by Palestrina and Allegri. McCleery has also been a strong advocate for music education and for the importance of teaching singing to young people. ~ James Manheim