ÍøÆغÚÁÏ

When English soprano Emma Kirkby began her professional career in the mid-'70s, period performance practice was just beginning to make its way into the realm of vocal music. Kirkby, mentored by Jessica Cash, became a pioneer of period practice for Renaissance and Baroque vocal soloists. She studied classical literature at Oxford and took vocal lessons, but did not plan on becoming a singer. She joined the Taverner Choir in 1971, and a couple of years later, she began a long-lasting collaboration with the Consort of Musicke. She made her 1974 concert debut in London and her first tour of the United States in 1978. Tours to all of the major music capitals of the world have followed. Especially noteworthy was a tour of the Arabian states with lutenist Anthony Rooley, to whom she is married. In her collaborations with groups like those already mentioned, and others -- such as the Academy of Ancient Music, London Baroque, Fretwork, L'Orfeo, and the Purcell Quartet -- she increased the public awareness of correct Baroque performance practice while carefully avoiding pedantry. She brings a great deal of drama and musicianship to her performances. Besides the lute songs of the Renaissance era, Kirkby is well known for her performances of the cantatas and passions of Bach and the choral music of Monteverdi. Her voice is a very light, lyric soprano of unusual sweetness. She has excellent control of the voice and is able to sing without any vibrato, a quality that many practitioners of early music prefer.

Her hundreds of recordings give an excellent view of the range of her repertoire, at times even expanding on it, since she has recorded several operas that she has not sung on-stage, including Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Monteverdi's Orfeo, Handel's Orlando, and Hasse's Cleofide. Once in a while, she'll try something unexpected, such as the songs of Amy Beach or cantatas by little-known Baroque composers. Her early recordings were part of the Florilegium series from Decca. Since then she's recorded on Hyperion, Carus, CPO, Harmonia Mundi, BIS, and other labels. Kirkby was made a Dame of the British Empire in 2007. ~ Patsy Morita

Michael Chance is one of the world's leading countertenors, in demand worldwide for appearances in opera, on the recital stage, and in chamber music performances. Chance is the artistic director of the Grange Festival, where he is one of the few singers to lead a major opera company.

Chance was born in Penn, in England's Buckinghamshire region, on March 7, 1955. As a child, he was a chorister at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, and he attended the local St. George's school and the Eaton College boarding school. Chance went on to King's College, Cambridge, where he sang in the Choir of King's College and was a choral scholar, having his studies supported in exchange for singing daily services at the college chapel and pursuing musical training as well as studies in English literature. After graduating, he studied voice with Rupert Bruce Lockhart. Chance made his debut at the Buxton Festival in 1983 in a production of Cavalli's Giasone. For three seasons, he was a member of the Kent Opera Company. In 1985, he made his European debut in Lyon, France, in a production of Handel's Tamerlano. At the time, the use of countertenors in Baroque opera was just coming into vogue, and Chance's reputation spread rapidly. He has appeared at many of the world's major opera houses, including Covent Garden in London, La Scala in Milan, and several major opera houses in the Western hemisphere. In addition to major Baroque operas, Chance has championed 20th century and contemporary opera, taking roles in several operas of Benjamin Britten and stimulating the creation of new works by such composers as Richard Rodney Bennett, John Tavener, and even Elvis Costello. Chance has often performed as a chamber music recitalist. In 2015, he became the artistic director of the new opera company The Grange Festival in Hampshire, becoming one of the few internationally famous singers and perhaps the only countertenor to head a major opera company.

Chance has a large catalog of recordings that began in 1988 with an album of duets by Purcell and Blow that he performed with legendary countertenor James Bowman. He has recorded for Hyperion, Chandos, and Harmonia Mundi, among other labels, with a repertory ranging from lute songs to contemporary opera. In 2021, Chance was heard on the album Proud Songsters: English Solo Song, released on the King's College Choir label. ~ James Manheim

Charles Daniels is an English solo and ensemble singer specializing in early and contemporary music. He became a chorister in the famous Choir of King's College, Cambridge. Admission to that position for boy singers is by competitive audition and carries with it the benefit of attendance at the college's prep school, thorough musical and vocal training, and the duty of singing daily services during the school term and in the choir's concerts and tours. Veterans of this position are performers with wide knowledge of musical style and good vocal production.

Daniels attended Winchester College and, when he was ready for university, once again turned to King's College, having matured to a tenor voice. After an equally competitive audition he earned the position of choral scholar there. The duties and benefits were much the same; he became a member of the chorus and a student at Cambridge University on a full scholarship. The subjects of his joint degree were natural sciences and music.

After graduation he entered the Royal College of Music in London on a Foundation Scholarship, where he studied with Edward Brooks. He entered two major British voice competitions: the Great Grimsby International Competition for singers and the 1986 GKN English Song Award. He won major awards in both, including the Hubert Parry Prize for his choice of program.

Daniels has sung in many countries of Europe and in Israel, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada as a solo artist. The big works in his repertory are Baroque choral masterpieces such as Bach cantatas, masses, and passions and Handel oratorios. These include Handel's The Triumph of Time and Truth, Judas Maccabaeus, Solomon, and Acis and Galatea, and regular appearances as the Evangelist in Bach's St. Matthew and St. John Passions.

He has sung with modern instrument organizations such as the RTE Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and the Gulbenkian Choir and Orchestra. He also has worked with period instrument groups including the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music, the King's Consort, and Les Arts Florissants. With the last-named group he toured in Lully's opera Atys to the Montpelier Festival, Caen, Madrid, the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and New York. He has also appeared in the Halle Handel Festival, the Flanders Festival in Bruges, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage 2000.

Other Baroque music in his credits includes Monteverdi's Vespers (which he sang with the Nederlandse Bachvereniging in December 2000), Purcell's Dioclesian (at the Barbican Centre in London with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music), Purcell's The Fairy Queen, Rameau's La guirlande, and Charpentier's Vêpres aux Jésuites. He has recorded the role of Peachum in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, several Purcell discs for Hyperion records, The Fairy Queen, Bach's Easter Oratorio, and the Charpentier Vespers already mentioned. He has also recorded Haydn's St. Cecilia Mass. Working with the Hilliard Ensemble, he has participated in a recording with them on the ECM label of music of Perotin.

Other non-Baroque music Daniels has performed includes Schubert's Mass in E flat, Mendelssohn's Elijah, and Puccini's Missa di Gloria, as well as a performance before Pope John Paul II of Wojciech Kilar's Missa Pro Pace. He appeared on worldwide television as part of the BBC's Millennium Live 2000 singing in an all-Handel program with James O'Donnell and the Academy of Ancient Music at Westminster Abbey.

The Purcell Quartet has become recognized as one of the leading chamber groups in the realm of Baroque music performance. As its name suggests, the group has devoted much effort to championing the chamber works of Henry Purcell, playing and recording a great amount of his output, notably the complete three- and four-part sonatas and the complete pavans. But the group's vast repertory also includes works by J.S. Bach, Corelli, Handel, Vivaldi, Schütz, and many other Baroque composers. In addition, -- and what makes the Purcell players unique -- they have staged operas, such as Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea and have presented large choral works in concert by Bach, including cantatas and masses. They have made over 50 recordings, mostly for the Chandos label.

The Purcell Quartet was founded in London in 1983, but did not give its debut concert until February 14, the following year, at London's St. John's, Smith Square. The group's members then were Robert Woolley (keyboard), Catherine Mackintosh (violin), Elizabeth Wallfisch (second violin), and Richard Boothby (cello; viola da gamba). Only one change in personnel has taken place over the years: violinist Catherine Weiss replaced Wallfisch.

The group had immediate success following its triumphant 1984 debut concert, and within three years turned out six recordings for the Hyperion label, each devoted to a different Baroque composer: Vivaldi, Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, C.P.E. Bach, Geminiani, and Marais. In 1987 the ensemble began recording for Chandos Records and has produced more than 40 CD titles for that British label.

By the early '90s, the Purcell Quartet was in great demand, both at home and abroad. Numerous concert tours took the quartet not only throughout the U.K., but across Europe, the U.S., South America, and parts of the Middle East. In 1998 the group traveled to Japan to stage performances of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea. Three years later it returned for another important tour, this one featuring a highly successful staging of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo starring Mark Padmore. Other leading vocalists have typically appeared at the Purcell Quartet's opera and concert productions over the years, including Emma Kirkby, Nancy Argenta, Michael Chance, and Peter Harvey.

The Purcell Quartet marked its 20th anniversary in an acclaimed February 2004 concert at Wigmore Hall. The ensemble has remained very active in the recording studio, and among its recordings is the 2006 Chandos CD of Couperin's Les Nations, Vol. 2.