Matthew Best

Matthew Robert Best (6 February 1957 – 10 May 2025) was an English bass singer, choral conductor, composer and academic. He had a long career as a singer at major opera houses of the United Kingdom including the Royal Opera House and the English National Opera, performing lead roles such as Wotan in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Best was recognised internationally as conductor of vocal music performed with his ensemble Corydon Singers which he founded at age 16; their recordings of works by Anton Bruckner have been regarded as excellent and earned awards. He taught voice at the Royal Northern College of Music from 2015 until 2024.

Life and career Best was born in Farnborough

Recordings Best's recordings with the Corydon Singers, focused music by Bruckner, Brahms and Mendelssohn, received positive reviews. Their 1990 recording of Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music and other works was selected as Record of the Year by both The Guardian and The Sunday Times, and was nominated for the Brit Awards. Their recording of Bruckner's Te Deum and Mass in D minor was selected as one of the top releases of 1993 by the BBC's Record Review.

Bruckner scholar Hans Roelofs described Best as a reference performer of Bruckner's religious music, for recordings of his Requiem, the Mass No. 2 (1882 version), Psalms 114 and 112; along with his motets, Mass No. 1, Mass No. 3, Two Aequali, Libera me (II), Te Deum and Psalm 150.

Bruckner: Motets, Hyperion CDA66062, 1982 Bruckner: Mass in E minor, Libera me, Zwei Aequale, with English Chamber Orchestra wind ensemble, Hyperion CDA66177, 1985 Bruckner: Requiem, Psalms 112 & 114, with English Chamber Orchestra, Hyperion CDA66245, 1987 Bruckner: Mass in F minor, Psalm 150, with Corydon Orchestra, Hyperion CDA66599, 1992 Bruckner: Mass in D minor, Te Deum, with Corydon Orchestra, Hyperion CDA 66650, 1993