Eamonn Dougan

British conductor Eamonn Dougan is also active as a baritone, performing with The Sixteen and other ensembles. He is the associate conductor of The Sixteen and has led many other ensembles, some of them abroad. Dougan attended New College, Oxford, financing his education as a choral scholar (a singer who performs at university church services in exchange for tuition reductions) and later as a lay clerk (a professional member of a university choir). He entered Oxford leaning toward a musical career but unsure of what kind, and he gravitated toward conducting as he studied with Edward Higginbottom. He appeared on several recordings as a member of the New College Choir. In 2003, Dougan went on to the Guildhall School of Music in London, studying with Susan McCulloch and earning a singing diploma. Dougan has been equally visible as a singer and as a conductor. He has performed as a member of some of Britain's top ensembles, including The King's Consort, the Academy of Ancient Music, the vocal group I Fagiolini, and The Sixteen, where he has served as associate conductor. Dougan has appeared as a recitalist, performing songs by Schubert and Peter Warlock as well as French vocal music. In the conducting realm, Dougan's activities have been varied and international. He is the founding director of the Britten Sinfonia Voices and is the music director of the Thomas Tallis Society. Dougan has also conducted instrumental music, serving as chief conductor of the Jersey Chamber Orchestra. He has guest conducted the BBC Singers, the Narodowe Forum Muzyki Choir, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, among many other groups. He conducted The Sixteen on a series of five recordings of Polish Baroque music and has continued to record as the conductor of other groups, including the Gaudete Ensemble (on the 2012 album Margaret Rizza: Mysterium Amoris) and, for the Hyperion label, De Profundis, on a 2020 album of works by Juan Esquivel. Dougan returned on Hyperion in 2023 with an album of music by Cristóbal de Morales. He serves as consultant coach for the Royal Academy of Music, and he has been a visiting professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, teaching ensemble singing and directing the Guildhall Consort. ~ James Manheim, Rovi