Andrew Parrott
Biography Andrew Parrott
Emily Van Evera
has appeared as a soloist throughout Europe and her native North America with ensembles including the Taverner Consort, Orchestra of the 18th Century, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Hilliard Ensemble, London Symphony Orchestra, Tragicomedia, Circa 1500, Musicians of Swanne Alley, Sequentia, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Gothic Voices and Academy of St-Martin-in-the-Fields. Conductors for whom she has sung include Andrew Parrott, Frans Brueggen, Joshua Rifkin and Gustav Leonhardt.
Amongst her numerous recordings are award-winning discs of music by Monteverdi, Bach, Vivaldi and Handel with the Taverner Players (EMI, Virgin), by Luigi Rossi with Tragicomedia (Teldec), Cavalli with Concerto Palatino (Harmonia Mundi France) and Elizabethan song and ballads with Musicians of Swanne Alley (Virgin). She sang the role of Dido in a Taverner Players/Sony recording of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and featured on The Promise of Ages. Her unaccompanied singing of music by Hildegard of Bingen was used by Angel Records as the basis of their best-selling Vision, awarded Best Classical Crossover CD of 1995 (Billboard).
Stage and television appearances have included leading roles in operas and dramatic works by Monteverdi, Handel, Charpentier and Lully. She has done a live broadcast of songs by Charles Ives and Carl Ruggles for the BBC Proms and of dramatic solo works by Rameau and Hasse for CBC, recitals of lieder by Fanny Mendelssohn and performances of Handel’s Messiah for American National Public Radio.
Charles Daniel
repertoire extends 1150 years from the ninth century to the present day. Born in Salisbury, he received his musical training at King’s College, Cambridge, and the Royal College of Music in London where he studied under Edward Brooks.
Charles has made over ninety recordings as a soloist, the most recent Western Wind with the Taverner Choir & Players (Andrew Parrott) on Avie, winning the 2016 Gramophone Award for Early Music – further recordings include Evangelist St John Passion with Portland Baroque, Handel’s Messiah with the Gabrieli Consort for Deutsche Grammophon, Dowland Songs for EMI, Handel’s Alexander Balus with The King’s Consort for Hyperion, The Beggar’s Opera for Hyperion, Schütz’ Christmas Story for Deutsche Grammophon, Haydn’s St Cecilia Mass with the Gulbenkian Choir and Orchestra, Bach’s Easter Oratorio with the Taverner Consort for EMI, Airs de Cour with Catherine King and Jacob Heringman, Handel Occasional Songs with Emma Kirkby for SOMM records and more than twenty discs of Purcell’s music, mostly with The King’s Consort.
Operatic roles have included Le Dieu de Sommeil in Lully’s Atys for the Opéra de Paris and Purcell’s Fairy Queen in the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Concert engagements have included regular appearances at the BBC Proms, the Edinburgh International Festival, London Handel Festival, Spitalfields Festival and appearances with The Sixteen, Academy of Ancient Music, The King’s Consort, English Concert and Gabrieli Consort. Engagements outside the UK include regular appearances throughout Canada where he works with Les Voix Baroques, Les Voix Humaines, Toronto Consort and Tafelmusik, and appears regularly with Early Music Vancouver and at the Montreal Baroque Festival. Charles also works regularly with De Nederlandse Bach Vereniging (Netherlands Bach Society) and has made guest appearances with Instant Pluriel (Bach Profane Cantatas), Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (Mass in B Minor), Netherlands Philharmonic with Sir Colin Davis (St Matthew Passion), Il Complesso Barocco (Dido & Aeneas, Guilty Night), Collegium Musicum Bergen (Messiah) and Warsaw Philharmonic (Wojciech Kilar’s Missa Pro Pace). Recent engagements include King Arthur with Tafelmusik in Toronto, Athalia with Kammerorchester Basel, L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed il Moderato in St Gallen with Rudolf Lutz, a recording of St Matthew Passion with Choir & Orchester of the J.S. Bach Foundation, St John Passion in Wroclaw, Purcell concerts with Gabrieli Consort, Gli Amori d’Apollo e di Dafne for Toronto Consort, Biber Requiem with RIAS Kammerchor, Dido & Aeneas with The King’s Consort and a series of Bach concerts in The Netherlands with Musica Amphion. Recent engagements include Messiah in Japan with Bach Collegium Japan and St John Passion with Tafelmusik, Canada.
Career highlights have included Luigi Nono’s Canti di Vita e Amore (Edinburgh International Festival), Handel’s Esther (sung in Hebrew) in New York, Monteverdi Vespers with the Gabrieli Consort in Venice with Paul McCreesh, Handel’s Belshazzar at the Théâtre de Champs Elysées in Paris and Messiah at the Musikverein, Vienna with Harnoncourt. Further engagements have included Dream of Gerontius in Wroclaw, a tour of L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed il Moderato (J.S. Bach Stiftung) with Rudolf Lutz, Purcell at the Wigmore Hall (The King’s Consort), Vespers in Vancouver & Seattle, a series of Bach Christmas Concerts with NBV, Bach Secular Cantatas with Bach Collegium Japan, St Matthew Passion with NBV, Vespers with Toronto Consort, Schütz with Dresdner Kammerchor, Vespers with The King’s Consort at the Rheingau Festival, a semi-staged Fairy Queen with the AAM at the Barbican Hall, Mass in B Minor with the BBC Singers, Messiah in Australia with Melbourne Symphony and Queensland Symphony Orchestras, Bach Cantatas in St Gallen and a series of concerts at Oregon Bach Festival.
Recent engagements have included King Arthur with the Academy of Ancient Music, Die gesungene Kunst der Fuge with Holland Baroque Society, Vivaldi concerts in Venice with la Serenissima, Bach Cantatas in Trondheim, Messiah in Vancouver, Christmas Oratorio with Oxford Philharmonic, St Matthew Passion with Phiharmonie Zuidnederland, Mass in B Minor with Tafelmusik in Toronto, Bij Bach thuis with the Nederlandse Bachvereniging and Monteverdi’s Orfeo with Toronto Consort.
Engagements in 2019/2020 include On Wenlock Edge with the Bride Quartet, Messiah with Bath Choral Society and later in Belgium, Christmas Oratorio at Kings Place, Bach Concerts in Montreal, St John Passion with Tafelmusik in Toronto, The Fairy Queen with the Gabrieli Consort, Bach Cantatas in St Gallen and St Matthew Passion with Tilford Bach Society.
Andrew Parrott
A former Music Director of the London Mozart Players and of the New York Collegium, British conductor Andrew Parrott’s exploration of the classical repertoire has included productions of operas by Haydn, Gluck and Mozart (six of them for Toronto’s Opera Atelier) and the recording of all Beethoven’s works for piano and orchestra (with Ronald Brautigam for BIS).
From the outset new music has also played an important part in Andrew Parrott’s wide-ranging musical life. He was an assistant to composer Michael Tippett for several years and a member of the vocal quartet Electric Phoenix, and has conducted major orchestral and choral works by Stravinsky and Judith Weir at the BBC Proms. The latter’s opera, A Night at the Chinese Opera, was premiered (and later recorded) by him, as were works by other British composers and by Slovakia’s Vladimír Godár.
Andrew Parrott is perhaps best known though for his pioneering work in pre-classical repertory (from medieval music to Handel), notably in performances with his own Taverner Consort, Choir & Players, who have also made 60 or so recordings together – including his own première reconstruction of Bach’s lost Trauer-Music for Prince Leopold (2011), Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (2013) and Taverner’s Western Wind mass (2016; Gramophone Award). A graduate of Oxford University, he has always been involved in related musicological research and has published two challenging books, The Essential Bach Choir (2000) and Composers’ Intentions? (2015); a third is currently inching towards completion.
