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Born and raised in Australia, Scott has been performing as a professional singer since childhood. He began his career and musical education in the British choral tradition, singing as a boy soprano in the St George’s Cathedral Perth choir, where he sang for five years. After his voice change he attended the McDonald College of the Performing Arts in Sydney, where he studied music and acting in the Stanislawksy/Laban tradition, and was awarded a full scholarship for Excellence in Performance. He then attended the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Music Studies and was given the Most Exceptional Contribution to the Arts award from Wesley College, University of Sydney.

Upon moving to London he continued his studies with the English National Opera’s Baylis Programme for young performers and was regularly engaged to perform as a recitalist and operatic tenor in festivals and opera companies in both the United Kingdom and France. He then completed his studies at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague where he studied Early Music and Classical Singing, and now based in Düsseldorf, is regularly engaged as a soloist in The Netherlands and Germany, with a particular focus on Bach oratoria and Evangelist roles in the Passions.

Scott is the artistic director and vocalist of Conceptus, a multi-disciplinary ensemble dedicated to recording and performing great works and song cycles from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Conceptus

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Conceptus is an international, multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary ensemble with a membership drawn from Germany, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Poland and Australia. Formed in 2021 during the Coronavirus Pandemic, the ensemble is dedicated to bringing new life to great works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and beyond, with a particular emphasis on Late Romantic British vocal music and song cycles. Their debut album, “Gods, Ghosts and Monsters” is set for release by Divine Art Records in early 2024 and will feature music by Butterworth, Warlock, Holst and Bridge.

Conceptus has a close relationship with Australian composer Timothy Collins and have recorded his arrangements and compositions extensively. His “Sea Song”, set to the poetry of New Zealand author and poet Katharine Mansfield, will also feature in the debut album, and has been made into a film directed by James Cardell-Oliver. Tim has also composed the “Rilke Lieder” for the group, a cycle set to poetry by Austrian poet and writer Rainer Maria Rilke.

Conceptus has also commissioned works by award-winning German composer Christoph Ritter, whose Requiem is set for a world premiere and recording in 2024.

Conceptus is an international, multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary ensemble with a membership drawn from The Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Australia. Dedicated to performing and recording great works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Conceptus records and performs music by Frank Bridge, Ivor Gurney, Gustav Holst, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel and Franz Schubert to name just a few. The ensemble prides itself on its versatility with the core membership being piano trio plus tenor soloist, but also presents works for tenor-violin duo, string trio and piano quintet. The founding members (all pictured) are tenor and artistic director Scott Robert Shaw, Dutch violinist Eva de Vries, Catalan ‘cellist Laura Roura Foixà and Russian pianist Luba Podgayskaya, who meet, rehearse and record regularly in The Hague.

Conceptus has a close relationship with Australian composer Timothy Collins and have recorded his arrangements and compositions extensively. Greek filmmaker and composer Efthymios Stavropoulos also works regularly with the ensemble and will be directing the upcoming film of Collins’ “Sea Song”, a contemporary work for voice and piano trio set to poetry by New Zealander poet and author Katherine Mansfield, first recorded by Conceptus in November 2021.

To mark the 150th anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ birth in 2022, upcoming Conceptus projects include recording several of some of his lesser-known works, including On The Field, Four Hymns and Merciless Beauty.

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