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The American choral conductor, Clayton Bradford Bowman, received his first piano lessons at the age of 7. He was also introduced to choral music at a young age. He sang early on in select choirs such as the All-State Chorus Connecticut and the Connecticut Childrens' Chorus. At the age of 13, he celebrated his opera debut as a boy soloist in Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. He gained his first conducting experience during his school days. At the age of 14, he led the symphonic wind ensemble as a “student conductor” at Tolland Middle School and in 2000 took part in a conducting master-class at the University of South Carolina. From 2001 he studied singing and musicology at the University of Connecticut with a focus on ensemble work. This study ultimately led him to Germany, where he learned conducting from 2004 to 2008 with Professor Georg Grün, Klaus Thielitz and Wolfgang Seeliger at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim. At the same time, he was a singer and conductor for numerous ensembles in the Rhine-Necker region for a long time.
As a musical assistant with the Konzert Darmstadt and deputy conductor of the Universitätsorchesters Mannheim, Clayton Bowman gained his first experience with major works and, for example, studied oratorios such as J.S. Bach's Matthäus-Passion BWV 244. But especially with the Anglistenchor - one of the two chamber choirs at Universität Heidelberg - he made a name for himself and was able to greatly develop his preference for sophisticated a cappella music. The Anglistenchor under his direction often worked abroad and worked together with world-famous choirs such as the Choir of Gonville & Caius College Cambridge.
At the same time, Clayton Bowman was the director of the Kammerchor Altrip, Kirchenchor Mutterstadt and Frauenchöre der Protestant Gemeinde in Dannstadt. In addition to his activities as a conductor, he often performed with the Heidelberger Kantorei and the Hochschule für Kirchenmusik Heidelberg as a choir singer and soloist. He also sang regularly in the KammerChor Saarbrücken, in the Chor der Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz and occasionally appeared in the choir on stage at the Nationaltheater Mannheim and at the Oper Frankfurt. As a farewell to the Rhine-Neckar region, he conducted in December 2015 George Frideric Handel's Messiah with the Karlsruher Barockorchester.
Clayton Bowman has directed the TonArt Sauerlach-Holzkirchen choir since September 2016 and already conducts the chamber choir Camerata Vocale München, which he founded in 2016. He currently lives in Munich, Bavaria, Germany |
