Patrick Allies

Patrick Allies is best known as the director of Siglo de Oro, a small British choir specializing in Spanish Renaissance music and contemporary works. He is also active in the U.S. as a choir director, singer, and scholar. Allies' musical career began as a chorister at London's Temple Church, whose choir at the time was under the direction of legendary director Stephen Layton. He was later a member of the Gloucester Cathedral Choir. Allies went on to King's College London as a choral scholar, earning a bachelor's degree in music in 2010 with first class honors. While still at King's, in 2008, he formed Siglo de Oro ("Golden Century") with friends who studied at a variety of institutions around London. Allies earned a master's degree in choral studies at the University of Cambridge, singing in the Jesus College Choir and continuing to direct Siglo de Oro, which made its debut at the Spitalfields Festival in 2014. The choir has performed in London at the major Holy Week and Christmas Festivals at St. John’s Smith Square and planned a U.S. tour and an appearance at the Tage Alter Musik in Regensburg, Germany, for 2020 prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. Allies made short lists in 2017 in choral conducting competitions in Denmark and Lithuania. As of 2020, he was studying for graduate degrees in musicology at the University of Maryland and has also been active in the U.S., serving as a guest conductor at Christ Church Episcopal Church in Rye, New York, and at Loras College in Iowa. He has sung with the Washington Master Chorale and the Choir of St. Paul's K Street. With Siglo de Oro, Allies has made five recordings for the Delphian label, beginning in 2016 with the contemporary sacred music release Drop Down, Ye Heavens. In 2020, Allies and Siglo de Oro released Christmas in Puebla, featuring Baroque music from the cathedral of Puebla, Mexico. ~ James Manheim