The Choir of Buckfast Abbey & Matthew Searles
Biographie The Choir of Buckfast Abbey & Matthew Searles
The Choir of Buckfast Abbey
The present incarnation of the Abbey Choir was founded in 2009. The choir has since established a broad repertoire, ranging from polyphonic music of the sixteenth century and Masses of the Viennese school, through to music of the French Romantic tradition and contemporary music by James MacMillian, Matthew Martin and Dom Sebastian Wolff OSB. The choir has recently commissioned a set of eight fauxbourdon Magnificats for the liturgy from Andrew Reid, and given the premiere of a new Mass for Corpus Christi composed by Martin Baker.
The choir sings Solemn Mass and Vespers on Sundays, and Mass on Holy Days of Obligation during the week. A smaller schola supports the singing of the Monastic Community for Mass on weekday Solemnities and during choir holidays. The choir gives several concert performances each year, with recent highlights including Charpentier’s Messe de minuit with Noxwode Baroque and the Duruflé Requiem with the Southern Sinfonia. The choir recorded its first album in 2014 and has subsequently made several recordings on the Abbey’s in-house record label, Ad Fontes. In 2018 the choir sang Midnight Mass at the conclusion of Buckfast’s millennium year, which was televised live on BBC One.
Charles Maxtone-Smith
is Organist of Buckfast Abbey. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 2023 with the Advanced Diploma, MA Distinction and the DipRAM award, as a student of David Titterington, Bine Bryndorf, and Richard Pinel. He won the Musicians’ Company Award for Organists in 2023, which provides generous funding for two years of further study. He currently takes lessons with Christophe Mantoux at Saint-Séverin, Paris, studying French Baroque and Romantic literature. He successively held organ scholarships at Hereford Cathedral, New College, Oxford, Westminster Abbey, Royal Hospital Chelsea, and King’s College, London. Since 2014 he has been one of the Festival Organists at the annual Edington Festival of Music within the Liturgy, and has played for several BBC Radio 3 broadcasts.
Matthew Searles
is Master of the Music at Buckfast Abbey. He is responsible for all aspects of the musical life of the Abbey, including the daily Mass and Office, direction of the Abbey Choir, and is Executive Producer of the in-house record Label, Ad Fontes. Matthew joined the Abbey in 2018 as Assistant Master of the Music, during which time he helped to re-establish a treble line of choristers, and played for Midnight Mass, televised live on BBC One. Prior to moving to Buckfast, Matthew was Sub-Organist of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. He is a prizewinning graduate of Royal Holloway, University of London, where he received First Class Honours and the Driver Prize for ‘outstanding musical performance’. Matthew continued his studies at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Poitiers, France. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists.
