Paul Agnew

Paul Agnew (born 1964 in Glasgow) is a Scottish operatic tenor. Agnew read music as a Choral Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the Consort of Musicke, the Tallis Scholars, the Sixteen and the Gothic Voices, before embarking on a solo career in the early 1990s. Closely associated with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew has performed the roles of Jason in Charpentier's Médée and of Hippolyte in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, as well as appearing on the recordings of La descente d'Orphée aux enfers and Les plaisirs de Versailles, both by Marc-Antoine Charpentier; Acis and Galatea by George Frideric Handel, and Rameau's Grands Motets (Gramophone's Best Early Music Vocal award in 1995). In 2007 Agnew conducted Les Arts Florissants in a performance of Antonio Vivaldi. He is the first person other than William Christie to conduct the ensemble. He has since combined his conducting and singing careers. Paul Agnew's other recordings include Mozart's Coronation Mass, Bach cantatas and Bach's Mass in B minor with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir, Bach's St John Passion with Stephen Cleobury (also on video), Bach's St Markus Passion with Roy Goodman, Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ with Philippe Herreweghe, Handel's Solomon with Paul McCreesh, Bach's Christmas Oratorio with Philip Pickett and Rameau's Dardanus with Pinchgut Opera. He has played the title travesti role in Rameau's Platée, which has been released on DVD.