Richard Bannan is a Lay-Clerk of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, Musical Director of Petros Singers, and Head of Singing at King’s College School, Wimbledon alongside pursing a career as a soloist and consort singer.
Solo repertoire includes the Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, Fauré and Duruflé Requiems, the Bach Passions, both Bach and Saint-Saens’ Christmas Oratorios, Charpentier’s Te Deum and Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs in addition to mass settings by Mozart, Haydn, Rossini and Puccini as well as the Handel oratorios Messiah, Israel in Egypt and Dixit Dominus.
He has performed as soloist with orchestras such as Leipzig Gewandhaus, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, London Mozart Players and English Chamber Orchestra under conductors such as Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Richard Egarr, Nigel Short and David Bates, as well as with the single-voice ensembles Gallicantus, Tenebrae Consort and The Cardinall’s Musick. Most recently, Richard performed Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs with the Windsor and Eton Choral Society in the presence of HRH Prince Edward as part of the late Queen’s Jubilee celebrations at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
On stage he has sung Purcell’s Aeneas and Monteverdi’s Orfeo, whilst in recital he has sung cycles by Mahler (Kindertotenlieder) Brahms (Vier Ernste Gesänge), Vierne (Les Angelus), Cornelius (Weinachtslieder) and Finzi (I Said to Love) as well as shorter works by Beethoven, Schumann and Debussy.
Solo performances immediately prior to the pandemic included his first Sea Symphony(Vaughan Williams), Haydn’s Creation, Christmas music by Vaughan Williams and Finzi, the Monteverdi Vespers, Ian Aserssohn’s new oratorio Dies Irae and Bach’s B Minor Masswith the Academy of Ancient Music. Last season saw him performing throughout Europe inA Venetian Coronation, with Paul McCreesh & The Gabrieli Consort, as well as Mozart’s C Minor Mass, Faure Requiem and Carmina Burana by Orff whilst engagements during 2022-2023 include Messiah, Stanford’s Songs of the Fleet and D’Astorga’s Stabat Mater as well as his debut as Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the Windsor International Festival.
