British musician David Bates has, unusually, distinguished himself as both a choral conductor and a countertenor. He is the director of the instrumental ensemble La Nuova Musica. Bates had his first singing experiences at England's Salisbury Cathedral and went on for a degree at the Royal Academy of Music in London. At this point, he was pursuing countertenor studies and aiming at a Baroque opera career. Bates undertook further studies at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, working with major conductors of the historical performance movement, including John Eliot Gardiner, Marc Minkowski, and Nicholas McGegan. He has also been influenced by working as an assistant and chorus master to French conductor and harpsichordist Emmanuelle Haïm. In 2007, in London, Bates formed his own early music instrumental ensemble, La Nuova Musica, devoted to music of the Baroque and Classical periods. That group made its recording debut in 2012 on a Harmonia Mundi recording of Handel's pastoral opera Il Pastor Fido. Bates has deployed La Nuova Musica in opera as well as instrumental music, conducting the group in operas by Monteverdi, Handel, Vivaldi, and Giulio Caccini. In opera, he generally conducts from the harpsichord. He has also sung Baroque opera as well as contemporary music, such as Thomas Adès' The Lover in Winter, a song cycle for countertenor and piano. His Baroque appearances as a countertenor include those with such companies as the Komische Oper Berlin and the Hannover Staatsoper in Germany. Bates has guest conducted the choir Accentus and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, and in 2022, he conducted La Nuova Musica in a semi-staged production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at the BBC Proms. He and La Nuova Musica also collaborated with various choirs on recordings. Bates has recorded, mostly with La Nuova Musica, for Harmonia Mundi and for the PentaTone Classics label, which released his recording of Dido and Aeneas in 2023. ~ James Manheim, Rovi

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David Bates

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