Stephan MacLeod

Bass-baritone Stephan MacLeod has developed a second career as a conductor, most often of the ensemble he founded, Gli Angeli Genève. Both as a singer and as a conductor, he is a specialist in Baroque oratorio. MacLeod was born in 1971 in Geneva, Switzerland. In that city, he studied violin and piano at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève and also began voice lessons. Accepted into the Musikhochschule Köln in Germany, he studied with bass Kurt Moll and became interested in the historical performance movement, collaborating with the Musica Antiqua Köln and its conductor, Reinhard Goebel. MacLeod went on for further vocal studies with Gary Magby in Lausanne, Switzerland. He spent five years as first bass with the Huelgas Ensemble early music group in Belgium and worked under various leading historically oriented conductors, including Jordi Savall, Philippe Herreweghe, and Gustav Leonhardt. MacLeod made his recording debut in 1994 on the album Buxtehude: 6 Cantatas by the Anima Eterna Orchestra and the Collegium Vocale enemble. He appeared on several volumes in the complete series of Bach cantatas recorded by the Bach Collegium Japan and conductor Masaaki Suzuki as both soloist and chorister. In 2005, in Geneva, MacLeod founded the vocal-instrumental ensemble Gli Angeli Genève. He has continued to perform as a singer, sometimes, unusually, leading the ensemble while singing. The group soon began recording and was signed to the major Sony Classical label, releasing the album Telemann, Buxtehude, Bach: German Baroque Cantatas in 2008. MacLeod has often appeared in oratorios but has also appeared in opera. He has led Gli Angeli Genève in such unusual works as C.P.E. Bach's oratorio Die Israeliten in der Wüste at the Festival of Early Music in Utrecht during the 2022-2023 season. In all, as a singer and conductor, MacLeod has appeared on some 75 albums. His recording of Bach's Mass in B minor, BWV 232, with Gli Angeli Genève had the unusual configuration of ten singers and 27 instrumentalists. MacLeod released several albums on the Claves label in the early 2020s, moving to Aparté for the 2023 release Josquin: Malheur me bat. ~ James Manheim, Rovi