michael stewart
Organist and Director of Music
Michael Stewart is at the forefront of the younger generation of choral conductors in New Zealand, as well as being one of the country’s leading concert organists. In June 2011 he was appointed Organist and Director of Music at the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul, after previously serving for five years as Director of Music of The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart. Michael is also the Music Director of The Tudor Consort, and Deputy Music Director of the New Zealand Youth Choir.
Michael was awarded a Bachelor of Music with First Class Honours from the University of Canterbury and also held the inaugural John Robert Godley Organ Scholarship at Christchurch Cathedral. He was the recipient of a Dame Malvina Major Arts Excellence Award in 2002, which enabled him to pursue further study at McGill University (Montréal, Canada). He was awarded a McGill Organ Scholarship and graduated with a Master of Music degree majoring in organ performance in 2004. During his time in Montréal, Michael held the position of Assistant Organist to The Church of St Andrew and St Paul, a flourishing downtown Presbyterian church which boasts the finest music programme in the country. He has recorded for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio New Zealand Concert, and in 2020 recorded with the Choir of Wellington Cathedral for BBC Radio 3 - the first time a New Zealand choir has been featured on the Choral Evensong programme.
Since becoming Music Director of The Tudor Consort in 2007, Michael has continued the standard of choral excellence which this renowned early-music ensemble is noted for. He has broadened the repertoire to include music from the early Tudor composers through to the 20th Century, and has led critically-acclaimed performances of Handel’s Messiah and J S Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. The Tudor Consort now regularly collaborates with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and is frequently called upon for session recordings including the score for ‘Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War’ and the film scores for ‘Krampus’ and ‘One Thousand Ropes’.
Michael has participated in a series of the complete organ works of JS Bach with Assistant Director of Music Richard Apperley (2015), Felix Mendelssohn (2016), François Couperin’s ‘Pièces de Clavecin’ (2017-2019) and Charles Tournemire’s complete ‘L’Orgue Mystique’ (2020).