Justin Doyle

Justin Doyle has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin since 2017. From the 2026–27 season, he will also take up the position of Chief Conductor of the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir.

Born in Lancaster, England, in 1975, Doyle began his musical education as a chorister at Westminster Cathedral and later became a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge.

Doyle works regularly with ensembles including the Swedish Radio Choir, MDR Radio Choir, BBC Singers, Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Zürcher Sing-Akademie, Chorwerk Ruhr and Genesis Sixteen, as well as orchestras including the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble Resonanz, Finnish Baroque Orchestra, Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Orchestra of Opera North, Royal Northern Sinfonia and Kammerakademie Potsdam. Equally at home in the opera house, his recent engagements have included productions for Garsington Opera, Buxton Festival, Opera North and the Winteroper at Sanssouci Park in Potsdam.

With the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, Doyle has established an annual series of major new cantata commissions. His programming with the choir ranges from a renewed focus on Renaissance polyphony and works such as Heinrich Biber’s monumental Missa Salisburgensis to intimate arrangements of folksongs from around the world. Doyle collaborates regularly with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, including on an extensive Handel series. Recent recordings have included a cappella works by Tomás Luis de Victoria and Benjamin Britten, further releases in the choir’s Handel and Haydn series, and works by Mendelssohn and Brahms.

Doyle has a particular interest in musical traditions from around the world and is committed to bringing this repertoire to new audiences. He is also actively involved in music education: performances of his cantata Myths and Legends in the UK and Germany have introduced thousands of schoolchildren to Scandinavian folksongs and the music of Wagner. From 2018 to 2022, he was Professor of Choral Conducting at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, and from 2019 to 2024 Visiting Professor of Choral Conducting and Early Music at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

Forthcoming engagements include his debut with the WDR Radio Choir Cologne, as well as return engagements with ensembles including the Swedish Radio Choir, Finnish Baroque Orchestra and Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra.