Jeffrey Skidmore

Jeffrey Skidmore OBE (born 27 February 1951) is the conductor and artistic director of Ex Cathedra, a choir and early music ensemble based in Birmingham in the West Midlands, England. An active participant in musical education and a pioneer in researching and performing neglected choral works of the 16th to 18th centuries, he has worked with leading musicologists to prepare new performing editions of French and Italian music. In particular, his recordings of French and Latin American Baroque music with Ex Cathedra have won wide acclaim.

Jeffrey Skidmore was born in Birmingham, England, in 1951. He also attended St. Heliers Road Sunday School in Northfield before 1962, when he went to Bournville Boys Technical School, later Bournville Grammar-Technical School for Boys.

Skidmore began conducting while still at school, and was only 18 years old when he founded the Ex Cathedra choir in Birmingham in 1969. After going to Bournville Boys Technical School, later Bournville Grammar-Technical School for Boys, he went on to read music with David Wulstan at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a choral scholar under Bernard Rose. He then taught as a music school teacher in Birmingham.

Directing the Ex Cathedra choir and its associated Ex Cathedra Consort and Baroque Orchestra, Skidmore has appeared in concert series and festivals across the UK and abroad, and has made a number of highly acclaimed recordings. In addition, he regularly conducts other ensembles such as the BBC Singers, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Hanover Band. He has commissioned more than ten new works and conducted many world premières by well-established and new composers, including Fyfe Hutchins, Gabriel Jackson, John Joubert, Daryl Runswick, Peter Sculthorpe, Philip Sheppard, Peter Wiegold and Roderick Williams.

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