A native of Great Britain, Philip Barnes was educated at the Manchester Grammar School and the University of Manchester (music); he also studied at Bristol University (classics) and King's College in London (education). He was a boy chorister at an early age, and as an adult sang with the cathedral choirs of Bristol, Hereford, and Wells. There he sang with numerous choruses, notably St. Margaret's - Westminster Abbey, the Consort of St. Martin's-in-the-fields, the Chapel Choir of the Tower of London, and was a frequent deputy at St. Paul's Cathedral. He also worked with many secular ensembles in London's leading concert halls, and recorded for several major classical labels, including collections of Tallis (Hyperion) and Mendelssohn (London-Decca) to Peter Dickinson's Outcry (Conifer) and Mannheim Steamroller's A Fresh Aire Christmas (American 'Gramaphone') with John Rutter's Cambridge Singers. His experience as a choral director included positions with the Hereford Chamber Choir, and a six-voice ensemble, Variation, which undertook numerous concert tours and made recordings in France.

In 1988 he left London for St. Louis, where he was invited to chair the faculty of the Classics Department at John Burroughs School. In 1999 he relinquished the department chair following his appointment as the Johnston Endowed Chair in Classics. In addition to his teaching, he also serves as Burroughs's curriculum co-ordinator. Soon after his arrival in St. Louis, he was appointed assistant choirmaster at Christ Church Cathedral, and also sang in the choir at Temple Shaare Emeth. Since then he has also sang with the choirs of St. Peter's in Ladue, and St. Michael and St. George in Clayton, and for three years was choirmaster of Holy Communion Church in University City.

In 1989 Mr. Barnes was invited to direct the St. Louis Chamber Chorus, becoming only its fourth artistic director since 1956 when the choir was founded. Mr. Barnes's tenure with the Chamber Chorus has been marked by continual growth, both artistically and in terms of organization. The group has established itself as the leading chamber choir of the region, and received numerous plaudits from the press and media. Philip Barnes has created a distinctive sound for the choir, achieved through insightful choir training, and supported by regular auditions. The Chorus has embraced the literature written for unaccompanied choir, and has ensured that St. Louis audiences have regular access to the masterpieces of the repertoire, from the Renaissance to the Romantic period, and thence to the present day. Mr. Barnes has led the choir in the performance of nearly 1100 works, some of which individually contain many movements; see the repertoire section of this web site for listings of all of these works. No other choir in the Midwest, and few anywhere beyond our region, can boast such a broad repertoire of music from many periods and lands, performed in the original language and to the highest musical standards.

In addition to his remarkable knowledge of the existing choral repertoire, Philip Barnes has forged a reputation for championing new additions to the literature. In addition to his numerous first American performances, He has also presented many world premières, many of which were written for him and the Chamber Chorus. He has worked closely with many prominent choral composers around the world, including Ronald Arnatt, Richard Rodney Bennett, Stephen Paulus, Howard Helvey and Ned Rorem in the United States; Judith Bingham, Sasha Johnson Manning, David Matthews, Jonathan Pitkin and Patrick Zuk in Great Britain; Clare Maclean in Australia; Carl Rütti in Switzerland.

Under his direction the Chorus has made ten compact discs. Six of them were produced locally, one in collaboration with a Chicago-based publisher, and one with the Swiss-based label, Guild. Most recently, he has recorded twice for Regent Records in Great Britain, first releasing a disc of works commissioned for the Chorus, and then an anthology of compositions by Granville Bantock, scheduled for release in late 2009. (See our CDs page.)

Mr. Barnes is also active with a touring vocal ensemble, Musica Missouri, which he co-founded to present the works of choral composers with Missouri associations. This group's first tour was to Italy in 1998, where he directed concerts to packed audiences in Rome and the Naples area. Another European tour was arranged in the summer of 2004, and Mr. Barnes was invited to conduct concerts in Lisbon and Évora (Portugal), and Cáceres, Merida and Trujillo (Spain). Four years later the ensemble returned to Portugal and Spain for programs in Lisbon, Oporto and Braga, and then across the Spanish border, in Cambados and Santiago de Compostela. Future plans include a tour of East Anglia in Great Britain.

Philip Barnes has lectured widely, including at New York State's Chautauqua Institution, and has directed choral workshops in Missouri and beyond. He maintains a dual career of musician and classicist, and has given numerous papers on the application of music in modern productions of ancient Greek drama, and also analyses of modern settings of Roman verse. Since 2006 he has served as a CD reviewer for The Choral Journal, the monthly magazine of the American Choral Directors Association.

Like Dr. Arnatt, the Chorus's founder, Philip Barnes has been recognized with an award from the American Guild of Organists for his outstanding contribution to choral music in St. Louis. More recently, Sarah Bryan Miller of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in her summary of 2006, dubbed Philip Barnes "Conductor of the Year" in recognition of his achievements with the Chamber Chorus.

In appreciation of twenty years at the helm of the Chamber Chorus, Philip Barnes was awarded a sabbatical for the 2009-2010 season, which he spent as a Lay Clerk in the celebrated Norwich Cathedral Choir in Great Britain. In addition to singing the daily office, Mr. Barnes volunteered as a music adviser for printed and recorded music re-sold by Oxfam, a national charity. He continued his work as a reviewer, while researching material for both scholarly articles and concert programs by the Chamber Chorus.

Photo by Andrew R. Newman Photography