Patrick Dupré Quigley
Patrick Dupré Quigley is a Grammy-nominated American conductor.
Seraphic Fire
Quigley is Founder and Artistic Director of Seraphic Fire, which he founded in 2002. In an April 2015 interview with Gramophone magazine, Quigley described Seraphic Fire as an "all-star choir for the United States." Together, Quigley and Seraphic Fire have released 14 recordings on the Seraphic Fire Media label. In 2010, Quigley made national news for his viral internet campaign for his recording of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, which "rose to No. 1 on the iTunes classical chart the weekend of August 20th and briefly bettered a Lady Gaga album on the iTunes all-genre chart." Two of Quigley's recordings were nominated for the 54th Annual Grammy Awards: Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem was nominated in the "Best Choral Performance" category, and A Seraphic Fire Christmas was nominated in the "Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble Performance" category.Quigley is a frequent sponsor of new music, and in the 2016–17 Season alone, he commissioned works by seven American composers. Quigley commissioned composer Gregory Spears for an "audacious completion of the Mozart Requiem," which Quigley conducted on period instruments and toured throughout the Northeastern United States.
Notable collaborations
In 2011, Quigley commissioned the American playwright Laura Schellhardt to write a modern adaptation of the libretto for Purcell's opera King Arthur, which he mounted with Seraphic Fire at the New World Center in Miami. Quigley had another success with a semi-staged Dido and Aeneas giving "a luminous account of Purcell’s music."Quigley collaborated with tenor Bryan Hymel and mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer conducting the Schönberg arrangement of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, which was praised as "perhaps finest orchestral conducting to date."
Quigley conducted touring performances with Seraphic Fire and The Sebastians period instrument orchestra in 2015–2016 in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. The Washington Post highlighted "Quigley’s clean conducting," and the "vivid, sensitive performance of Handel, Purcell and Charpentier." The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that Quigley's tour allowed Seraphic Fire to make "a strong case for itself as an authoritative purveyor of three distinct strains of baroque music."
Quigley and Seraphic Fire's performance of Brahms’ German Requiem with soprano Tamara Wilson was named the Number 1 classical music event in South Florida for 2016.
In 2017, Quigley prepared Seraphic Fire for a collaboration with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra on a program of Bach where "Seraphic Fire’s unique sonority and vocal blend potently came to the fore." The Cleveland press was also enthusiastic, writing that "Seraphic Fire lived up its reputation as a taut, mellifluous force" and praising Quigley's Seraphic Fire as an artistic peer for the Cleveland Orchestra in Miami: "Miami. Cleveland. Doesn't matter. Bruckner and Bach at this level is needed and deserved everywhere." In March 2017, Quigley again collaborated with Welser-Möst for an all-Stravinsky program. The Plain Dealer praised the performance: "Arguably the smartest decision was hiring Seraphic Fire to join its first performance of Stravinsky's 'Threni: Lamentations of Jeremiah.' The six Miami-based vocalists who sang the solo roles helped elevate what could have been a drab and brutal reading of a 12-tone rite into a surprisingly listenable and spellbinding experience."
Guest conducting
Quigley is known for his interpretations of orchestral music as wide-ranging as Baroque and early Classical to works by Ligeti and Reich. He has been featured as a guest conductor with the San Francisco Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, Utah Symphony, New World Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Mobile Symphony Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, and the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra.In 2013, Quigley made his debut with the New World Symphony with a program of Bach and Mozart. Quigley was invited back to conduct a program ranging from Monteverdi to Reich's Desert Music.
In 2016, Quigley took the podium with the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Symphony Chorus for Handel's Messiah, receiving praise for his "youthful poise and clear control," and for "bl the dust off pages that often sound overfamiliar." Quigley was invited back to the San Francisco Symphony in 2018 to curate and conduct Bach, Berio and Ligeth at the San Francisco Symphony's Soundbox series. Quigley had previously worked as a cover conductor for several subscription programs under San Francisco's maestro, Michael Tilson Thomas, and also as a baritone soloist in John Cage's Litany for the Whale, performed as part of Cage’s Renga, led by Tilson Thomas.
In 2017, Quigley guest-conducted the Grand Rapids Symphony for a program of Handel and Stravinsky, and Washington, D.C.'s Cathedral Choral Society in its season finale featuring Dvořák's Te Deum, and a world premier of “Looking Up" by the composer Nico Muhly. The Washington Post wrote that "Quigley... with a number of prestigious orchestral guest-conducting gigs under his belt, hosted the finale with flair."
Quigley made his debut conducting the Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra Chorus for a program of Mozart's Requiem as part of the orchestra's 2017 "Summers @ Severance" season. "Quigley presented an intensely dramatic view of Mozart's last work," according to the Plain Dealer, for which he and the assembled forces received "tumultuous ovations in the sold-out hall." Classical music database Bachtrack called Quigley's Cleveland debut "a masterclass in musicianship," noting: "Itʼs rare for a visiting conductor to show the level of technical mastery Quigley achieved in limited rehearsal time." "Quigleyʼs embrace of the full work and nuanced rendering of its glories and revolutionary nature gave it a captivating momentum and sweep, a period piece brought to modern life with respect and imagination."
In 2018, he led the Utah Symphony in a subscription program of Haydn and Mozart with Dutch concert pianist Ronald Brautigam.
Quigley has championed György Ligeti's Aventures & Nouvelle Aventures, which he first conducted with SYZYGY in Dallas featuring members of the vocal ensemble Room Full of Teeth and again with the San Francisco Symphony and New World Symphony.