Jeremy Summerly, Visiting Professor of Music History

Professor Jeremy Summerly

  • Visiting Professor of Music History (2019 - 2022)

Jeremy Summerly is a British conductor. He was educated at Lichfield Cathedral School, Winchester College, and New College, Oxford. While at Oxford he conducted the New College Chamber Orchestra and the Oxford Chamber Choir. After graduating with a first-class honours degree in Music in 1982, he started work as a Studio Manager for BBC Radio, while pursuing postgraduate research in historical musicology at King's College London. Since 1991 he has been a presenter and reviewer for BBC's Radios 3 and 4, in particular for Radio 4's Front Row, and Radio 3's Record Review (formerly CD Review).

Since 1983 he has been conductor of the mixed-voice consort at the Edington Music Festival, and in 2012 he was appointed Artistic Director of Mayfield Festival of Music and the Arts, where he is also conductor of Mayfield Festival Choir.

He founded Oxford Camerata in 1984. In 1989, he was appointed lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music, where he was Head of Academic Studies from 1996 to 2007, and thereafter Head of Continuing Professional Development. He was conductor of Schola Cantorum of Oxford from 1990 to 1996. He was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in 2006, and in 2015 he became their Sterndale Bennett Visiting Lecturer in Music.  

In 2010, he was appointed Director of Music at St Luke's Church, Chelsea. He conducted the choir of The Queen's College, Oxford for the 2013–14 academic year, and was Director of Music at St Peter's College, Oxford from 2015 to 2019. In 2017, he was made a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music and he was Visiting Professor of Music History at Gresham College 2019-2022.