Daniel Hyde has been named as the new organist and director of music at St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue in New York. The British conductor, who currently holds the post of informator choristarum (choirmaster) at Magdalen College, Oxford, takes over a role that has been vacant since the sudden death of John Scott last summer.
Hyde would seem the ideal fit for what is arguably the most prestigious choral post in the US. A former organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, he has been a great success in his time at Magdalen, where he was appointed in 2009. As well as continuing to raise the choir’s standard and leading it on a number of successful international tours, together they have also enjoyed excellent reviews for their discs of music by Buxtehude and Ward. And Hyde is currently shortlisted for a BBC Music Magazine Award for a disc of Lawes, this time as an organist alongside the Phantasm chamber ensemble.
As someone who has performed at the BBC Proms, Hyde is a formidable organist, as was John Scott himself. Scott, who had been at St Thomas since 2004, was a popular figure at the Fifth Avenue church, where he had similarly led the choir to new heights. Shortly before his death, he oversaw the design of a new organ there, which will be named in his honour upon completion.
