Simon Halsey

Simon Halsey is one of the world's leading conductors of choral repertoire, regularly conducting prestigious orchestras and choirs both in Europe and North America. He has been Chorus Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus for over 25 years and is Chief Conductor of the Berlin Radio Choir. He is Artistic Director and founder of the dynamic professional choir European Voices, formed at the invitation of Sir Simon Rattle and is in his fifth season as Principal Conductor, Choral Programme for The Sage Gateshead. Halsey also holds the position of consultant editor for Faber Music in the UK.

As chorus master Simon Halsey has formed close partnerships with conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Edo de Waart, Valery Gergiev, Riccardo Chailly, Marek Janowski, Sakari Oramo, Kent Nagano, Claudio Abbado and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Halsey regularly conducts major choral projects with some of the world's greatest orchestras, including the Philharmonia Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony and Minnesota Orchestra.

In 2009 Simon Halsey won a "Best Choral Performance" Grammy Award for his work on EMI Classics' release of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms.

The disc features Halsey's own Berlin Radio Choir alongside the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle. This is the second Grammy win in this category in as many years for the celebrated partnership of Simon Halsey and Sir Simon Rattle: they collaborated on the Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem EMI disc that won the 2008 award, as well as scoring wins at the Gramophone Awards and at Germany's Echo Klassik Awards.