Patrick Dupré Quigley

Seraphic Fire

Quigley is Founder and Artistic Director of Seraphic Fire, an American professional choir and orchestra he founded when he was only in his early 20s. In an April 2015 interview with Gramophone magazine, Quigley descrbed Seraphic Fire as an "all-star choir for the United States." Based on his work with Seraphic Fire, Quigley was awarded the Robert Shaw Conducting Fellowship for outstanding, emerging conductors in North America. Together, Quigley and Seraphic Fire have released 13 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 was the only conductor in the world to be nominated for two separate projects that year.

Quigley is a frequent sponsor of new music, and in the 2016–17 Season alone, he commissioned works by seven American composers. Quigley comissioned 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 to conduct the Schönberg arrangement of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, which was praised as "perhaps [Quigley's] 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. Anne Midgette, writing for 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-Stravinksy program. The Plain Dealer praised the performance: "Arguably the [Cleveland Orchestra's] 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, New World Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, Louisiana Philharmonic, Mobile Symphony Orchestra, San Antonio Symphony, Dessoff Choirs, Vocal Arts Ensemble Cincinnati, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and Vocal Arts Seattle. He has 2017 guest-conducting dates with the Grand Rapids Symphony for a program of Handel and Stravinsky Washington, D.C.'s Cathedral Choral Society for Dvořák's Te Deum, and will make his debut conducting the Cleveland Orchestra for a program of Mozart's Requiem as part of the orchestra's 2017 "Summers @ Severance" season.

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.

Quigley has championed György Ligeti's Aventures & Nouvelle Aventures, which he conducted with SYZYGY in Dallas featuring members of the vocal ensemble Room Full of Teeth and again on a subscription concert with the New World Symphony.

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[owing] the dust off pages that often sound overfamiliar." Quigley had previously worked as a cover conductor for 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.

Personal life

Quigley studied at the Yale School of Music and the University of Notre Dame. He resides in Washington, D.C. with his husband and dog.