Stephan MacLeod is a bass-baritone and conductor. Born in Geneva, he is the founder and artistic director of Gli Angeli Genève, a vocal-instrumental ensemble that specialises in repertoire from the 16th to the 19th century on period instruments. He conducts between 40 and 50 concerts per year worldwide, a growing number of which as guest conductor with “modern” orchestras, particularly in the repertoire by J.S. Bach and his contemporaries. Simultaneously, he is also happily pursuing his singing career, and teaching singing at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne.
During the 2023/24 season, he opens the Musica Antiqua Festival in Bruges, singing and conducting J.S. Bach's Magnificat with his ensemble Gli Angeli Genève. He also leads the Norwegian ensemble Barokkanerne in a programme of Telemann in Oslo, and conducts the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra in a programme of Mozart and Haydn symphonies and concert arias in Budapest. As a soloist, he sings a French baroque recital at the Staatsoper Berlin with ensemble 1700, arias for bass by J.S. Bach at the Vantaa BRQ Festival, cantatas by J.S. Bach with the Gewandhausorchester and the Thomanerchor, and Bach’s Magnificat on tour in the Netherlands and Spain with the Dutch Bach Society led by Alex Potter. With Gli Angeli Genève, he sings and leads the ensemble in Händel’s Messiah, in J.S. Bach B-minor mass, among many other projects. He also sings the parts of Jesus and the bass arias in Bach’s St. John Passion with the Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra led by György Vashegyi, and bass arias in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Collegium Vocale Ghent led by Philippe Herreweghe.
Highlights of the 2022/23 season include the oratorio Die Israeliten in der Wüste by C.P.E. Bach's at the Utrecht Early Music Festival, Bach's St. Matthew Passion at St. Peter's Cathedral in Geneva, both with his ensemble Gli Angeli Genève, the title role in Mendelssohn's Elijah under the baton of Philippe Herreweghe, Handel's Messiah with Concerto Copenhagen conducted by Lars Ulrik Mortensen, in Handel's Belshazzar with Concerto Köln conducted by Vaclav Luks, Mozart's Vesperae solennes de confessore with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Jonathan Nott, and Bach's Cantatas with Les Ambassadeurs conducted by Alexis Kossenko. Throughout the 2022/23 season he also gave song recitals with Kristian Bezuidenhout on fortepiano, with programmes of Lieder by C.P.E. Bach, Beethoven and Schubert.
Other recent highlights were the world premiere of Antonin Reicha's Sinfonia Concertante for two cellos and orchestra with cellists Christophe Coin and Davit Melkonyan and Gli Angeli Geneva, conducting the Zuidnederland Philharmonic in Bach's St. Matthew Passion, a concert of the St. Matthew Passion at the KKL in Luzern and a concert with the Geneva Opera Orchestra in Paris in the St. Matthew Passion, the performance and recording of Mozart's complete concertos for flute and orchestra (released in October 2022), the acclaimed recordings of Bach's St. Matthew Passion (2020), Mass in B minor (2021) and St. John Passion (released March 23). In 2019, he received an ICMA award with Gli Angeli Geneva, in the category "Best Baroque Vocal Music Recording of the Year," for the CD "Sacred Music of the 17th century in Wroclaw."
Stephan MacLeod first studied at the Conservatoire de Genève, then with Kurt Moll at the Cologne Musikhochschule and finally with Gary Magby at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne. His singing career began during his studies in Germany through a fruitful collaboration with Reinhard Goebel and Musica Antiqua Köln. It was then that the doors to the oratorio world opened to him. Since then, he has been singing on the most important stages around the world, under the direction of conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe, Jordi Savall, Frieder Bernius, Franz Brüggen, Masaaki Suzuki, Michel Corboz, Gustav Leonhardt, Christophe Coin, Konrad Junghänel, Hans-Christoph Rademann, Sigiswald Kuijken, Vaclav Luks, Philippe Pierlot, Helmut Rilling, Rudolf Lutz, Raphael Pichon, Paul Van Nevel or Jos Van Immerseel, as well as with Daniel Harding or Jesús López Cobos. He also sang in opera productions at La Monnaie in Brussels, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Opéra national de Toulouse, Opéra de Nîmes, Opéra national de Bordeaux, and Oper Köln.
Since 2005 and in parallel with his singing career, he has also devoted himself to conducting, and he founded the ensemble Gli Angeli Genève, with which he records one or two albums per year for the Claves label. Stephan MacLeod’s discography as a singer and conductor includes more than 100 CDs, many of them critically acclaimed. Since 2013, he has been a singing teacher at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne and shares his career between teaching, his commitments as a singer, his ensemble, and as a conductor.
