Matthew Owens is Organist and Master of the Choristers of Wells Cathedral, having previously been Organist and Master of the Music at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh, and Sub Organist of Manchester Cathedral. He is also tutor in organ studies at Wells Cathedral School (one of the five specialist music schools in the United Kingdom), and conductor of the Wells Cathedral Oratorio Society and The Exon Singers. Born in 1971, he studied at Chetham’s School of Music, The Queen’s College, Oxford, the Royal Northern College of Music and the Sweelinck Conservatorium, Amsterdam. From 1994 to 1999, he taught at the Royal Northern College of Music and Chetham’s and worked for BBC Religious Broadcasting. He was assistant conductor of the National Youth Choir of Great Britain from 1993 to 1999. He is increasingly in demand for choral workshops, masterclasses and adjudications in the United Kingdom and abroad, and has made over twenty CDs as a conductor or solo organist. He has championed new music, premiering many works by leading composers ranging from Jools Holland to James MacMillan, and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies to Arvo Pärt.