Jeffrey Skidmore

Jeffrey Skidmore is a British choral conductor, music educator, and founder of the Ex Cathedra early music ensembles. He is a champion for reviving forgotten and neglected choral works of the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras. Skidmore was born in 1951 in Birmingham, England, into a non-musical family. As a boy he was inspired by the sounds of King's College Choir, Cambridge on the radio, and he learned several instruments including the violin, trumpet, and recorder. Later, he took piano, organ, and singing lessons, and he served as a chorister at St. Francis' Church in Bourneville. He moved with his family to the United States when he was 16 years old, but he returned to the U.K. and lived with friends while he finished his schooling. In the following year, he joined the Birmingham Cathedral Choir and became a student of Roy Massey, who was the chorus master and organist. Massey encouraged Skidmore to audition for the Magdalen College in Oxford, where he received a choral scholarship. There, he studied with Bernard Rose and David Wulstan, and when he was 18 he founded the chorus Ex Cathedra, which at that time included Emma Kirkby, Paul Elliot, David James, and others. After Skidmore graduated from Oxford in 1974, he returned to Birmingham and joined the Lichfield Cathedral Choir, and he also began teaching at the John Willmott School in Sutton Coldfield. In the mid-'80s, Skidmore formed the Ex Cathedra Baroque Ensemble, and the Ex Cathedra Consort, and in 1991 he released the album Vivaldi: Vespers. He left his teaching position in 1994 so he could focus on directing the Ex Cathedra ensembles, and he recorded De Lalande: Regina Coeli; De Profundis; Cantate Domino, Sir Christèmas: Carols Old and New, and Orlande de Lassus: Sacred Choral Music; Missa ad Imitationem Vinum Bonum. Skidmore traveled to Mexico, Bolivia, and Brazil to research the early music of those regions, and in 2003 he released New World Symphonies: Baroque Music from Latin America. He is also interested in new music, and he regularly commissions new pieces for Ex Cathedra. James MacMillan, Sally Beamish, and Karlheinz Stockhausen have composed for the ensemble, and Skidmore recorded three albums that featured the music of Alec Roth: Alec Roth: Shared Ground from 2011, Alec Roth: A Time to Dance from 2016, and the 2023 release Alex Roth, Vikram Seth: The Traveller; Earth & Sky. Residing in Birmingham, Skidmore is the director of the early music program at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and he also teaches as a guest lecturer at other schools in England and abroad. ~ RJ Lambert, Rovi