Paul Mealor

Paul Mealor FRSA (born 25 November 1975) is a Welsh composer. A large proportion of his output is for chorus, both a cappella and accompanied. He came to wider notice when his motet Ubi Caritas et Amor was performed at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011. He later composed the song Wherever You Are, which became the 2011 Christmas number one in the UK Singles Chart.

Biography

Born in St Asaph, Denbighshire, North Wales, Mealor studied composition privately with William Mathias and John Pickard and then read music at the University of York (1994–2002). He studied composition at York with Nicola LeFanu, and in Copenhagen at the Royal Danish Academy of Music with Hans Abrahamsen (1998–99).

Since 2003, he has been teaching at the University of Aberdeen, where he is currently Professor of Composition, and has held visiting professorships in composition at institutions in Scandinavia and the United States. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and since 2011 has been published by Novello. Also in 2011, he signed to Decca Records. His first album for Decca, A Tender Light – a collection of sacred choral anthems – spent six weeks at No 1 in the Classical charts.