Hannah Ely, Toby Carr, Monteverdi String Band & Oliver Webber
Biographie Hannah Ely, Toby Carr, Monteverdi String Band & Oliver Webber
Hannah Ely
Based in Brussels, British soprano Hannah Ely specialises in the Renaissance and Baroque and has performed as a soloist in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and around the UK with early music ensembles including Collegium Vocale Gent, Il Gardellino, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Vox Luminis, Ensemble Schirokko Hamburg, Yorkshire Bach Soloists, Alia Mens Ensemble, Monteverdi String Band and Camerata Øresund, working with directors Philippe Herreweghe, Alex Potter, Stephen Devine, Peter Spissky, Oliver Webber, Olivier Spilmont, Lionel Meunier and Peter Seymour.
Hannah also enjoys singing one-per-part consort work with a range of small ensembles around Europe, including Collegium Vocale Gent (BE), Huelgas Ensemble (BE), InVocare (CH), Siglo de Oro (UK), Musica Secreta (UK), Vox Luminis (BE), and The Tallis Scholars (UK).
She is the founder and artistic director of Fieri Consort (UK) specialising in Italian and English 16th and 17th century secular music, with whom she recorded an album of solos and duets by Barbara Strozzi and her contemporaries as well as five other albums of consort music and two new commissions. Fieri will collaborate with Camerata Øresund and Peter Spissky to make a recording of Graupner Christmas Cantatas in 2025 on the Ramée label (Outhere).
In 2023, she joined the American Bach Soloists Academy to perform Bach Magnificat in D as well as various cantatas in San Francisco. Selected for the Handel House Talent young artist scheme in 2018, she remains a part of the family and performs regular recitals in that historic London venue.
Over recent years, she has enjoyed exploring diminutions, ornaments and accompaniment practices, most recently with Oliver Webber and the Monteverdi String Band, with whom she has made a recording on the Resonus Classics label - releasing June 2024. She is one half of Accenti - a duo with viola da gamba player Harry Buckoke. Together they explore the performance practices of madrigals for solo voice including approaches to ornamentation and intabulation of the 16th and 17th centuries. They were selected for an artist residency in Spring 2024 producing a concert video.
She made her opera debut at the Brighton Early Music Festival in 2015 as Sirena in La Liberazione di Ruggiero by Francesca Caccini, returning as a soloist in Blow’s Venus and Adonis and Monteverdi’s Il Ballo delle Ingrate. She has also played both witch roles in Dido & Aeneas with the Erebus Ensemble and Ensemble Schirokko. Her Wigmore Hall debut in 2019 was with Dame Emma Kirkby's ensemble, Dowland Works, with whom she performs lute songs around the UK.
Hannah completed her Masters in Advanced Vocal Ensemble Studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland in 2018, following her studies at Manchester University and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. She studied with Yvonne Kenny during her studies in London and continues with Dame Emma Kirkby and Deborah York.
Toby Carr
Lutenist and guitarist Toby Carr is known as a versatile and engaging artist, performing with some of the finest musicians in the business.
Toby was introduced to the lute while studying the classical guitar at Trinity Laban, leading to a postgraduate degree at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where he has since been welcomed back as a professor.
He now has a busy performing career on a variety of plucked instruments as a soloist, continuo player, accompanist and chamber musician.
The challenge of presenting old music to new audiences in exciting ways takes up most of his professional life, and as such Toby has performed with most of the principal period instrument ensembles in the UK. These include the Academy of Ancient Music, the English Concert, La Nuova Musica and Dunedin Consort, as well as modern orchestras and opera companies such as the Royal Ballet, London Philharmonic Orchestra and English Touring Opera.
A specialism in 17th century song accompaniment has led to collaborations with singers such as Emma Kirkby, Nicholas Mulroy, Helen Charlston and Alexander Chance.
Toby is a member of Ceruleo, Lux Musicae London and Ensemble Augelletti and has appeared on numerous recordings.
Settled in Greenwich with his wife and collaborator, baroque harpist Aileen Henry, Toby’s interests outside of music include cooking and travelling, though when not working he generally tries to do as little as possible.
Monteverdi String Band
is dedicated to celebrating the sound and style of the early violin consort, in both well-established repertoire and innovative new programmes. Our instruments are carefully chosen: they are modelled on originals from the early decades of the 17th century, rather than the 18th century, when developments which led the violin away from its origins as a consort instrument transformed its sound into something perhaps more brilliant but less rich and grounded. We relish the sound of pure gut strings in equal tension; this and the use of matching instruments brings a unique sound to the ensemble: as one critic wrote, 'The MSB’s sound is quite unlike any that of any other ensemble I know that plays this music'.
We very much enjoy bringing our expertise to well-known works such as the operas of Monteverdi and Cavalli, or the iconic 1610 Vespers; we have also created a number of original programmes, ranging in scale from chamber programmes to full scale staged productions, in which we take inspiration from the wider cultural milieu. Featured themes (musical and non-musical) include Galileo, madrigals, swordsmanship, ornamentation and poetry. Programme details can be found on our PROGRAMMES page.
The pandemic in 2020 forced several postponements, but also allowed us to develop some new programmes, including The Madrigal Reimagined, due for release on Resonus Classics in June 2024, as well as launch our MSB in focus series, which was the subject of our first CD recording, Con Arte e Maestria, released on Resonus in 2021 to considerable critical acclaim.
Oliver Webber
has been specialising in historical violins and their relatives since the early 1990s. He has been a passionate advocate for bringing research and performance together: his work in the field of string-making has been transformative, inspiring individuals and ensembles worldwide, and his study of historical bow-holds has played a role in several important recordings, including Gabrieli’s award-winning readings of Purcell in 2019, For the Taverner Consort's recording of L'Orfeo in 2012, Oliver was invited to lead the string band, collaborating closely with Andrew Parrott on modelling every aspect of Monteverdi's own string band, including the elusive violini piccoli alla francese. Oliver holds a particular fascination for the art of ornamentation: he teaches courses on ornamentation in a range of styles for singers and instrumentalists at the Guildhall School in London, where he is a professor of baroque violin and viola, and his 2021 Resonus Classics recording, Con Arte e Maestria, was described as ‘dazzling yet intelligent’ – Planet Hugill. Oliver's fascination for languages and the intermingling of art forms in the early 17th century has proved a rich vein of material for MSB's programming.
Oliver lives in London with his wife and 2 sons, although they spend as much time as possible in the mountains of Liguria.
