Daniel Taylor (born November 1969) is a Canadian countertenor and early music specialist.
Daniel Taylor completed his undergraduate studies in English, philosophy, and music at the Faculty of Music of McGill University (Montreal) and his graduate work in religion and music at the Université de Montréal. He continued overseas with leaders of the baroque movement including the countertenor Michael Chance.[1]
Taylor's Glyndebourne debut in the 1997 Peter Sellars's production of Handel's Theodora was followed by his operatic debut in Handel's Rodelinda. His other operatic roles have included Nerone in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea and Tolomeo in Handel's Giulio Cesare. Taylor's repertory includes sacred works, lute songs, and contemporary works.
Taylor has performed with: Metropolitan Opera, Glyndebourne, San Francisco, Rome, Welsh National Opera, Canadian Opera, Opera North and Munich, Gabrieli Consort, Monteverdi Choir/English Baroque Soloists, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir, Les Arts Florissants, Academy of Ancient Music), and he regularly joins forces with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Fretwork and the King's Consort.
Taylor holds an exclusive contract with Sony Classical Masterworks. He has made more than eighty recordings on many labels including DG Archiv, Harmonia Mundi, Sony, EMI, Carus, Analekta, Teldec, Atma and the CBC. He is artistic director, founder and conductor of the Theatre of Early Music, a professional choir and period instrument ensemble based in Montreal, Canada. Among the awards he has won, he was named Opus Prizes Discovery of the year 1999 and Artist of the Year 2004.
He was involved in the project Bach Cantata Pilgrimage with John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir to perform and record the complete sacred cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach at historic places throughout Europe. He has worked with John Nelson/Ensemble Orchestral Paris for the CD/DVD of Bach Mass in B minor at Notre Dame in Paris, and in the Dieterich Buxtehude – Opera Omnia of Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir to record the complete works of Dieterich Buxtehude.
In 2009 he appeared in debuts with the Israel Philharmonic, the Madrid Symphony, with the San Francisco Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Orchestra, in recital at Wigmore Hall, at the Teatro Colón Buenos Aires and at New York's Carnegie Hall; in Avery Fisher Hall in Handel's Messiah with the Gächinger Kantorei and the New York Philharmonic under Helmuth Rilling.[2]
Daniel Taylor is also a teacher. He is Professor of Voice at the Conservatoire de Musique in Montreal, Professor of Voice at the University of Ottawa, a visiting artist at the University of Victoria, and an Adjunct Professor at McGill University.