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An invitation to conduct the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1985 was the catalyst for Roy Goodman's flourishing career as an international conductor. Within a few years Goodman, with the Hanover Band, had recorded for CD the first ever performances on historic instruments of the complete symphonies by Beethoven, Cherubini, Schubert, Schumann and Weber, as well as 60 symphonies by Haydn. He has conducted well over 100 CDs ranging from Monteverdi's sacred vocal music to Holst's Planets including further orchestral and choral works by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Berwald and important baroque works by Purcell, Corelli, Handel and Bach. His CD recordings of the complete Schumann symphonies for RCA have received outstanding critical praise worldwide. In 1994 Goodman was invited as the first Principal Conductor of the Umeå Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Northern Opera. He now holds the posts of Principal Conductor of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra in Winnipeg and Musical Director of the European Union Baroque Orchestra.
In the coming seasons he will be working with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, New Sinfonietta Amsterdam, Norwegian Radio Orchestra and the Malmö Symphony Orchestra. Opera work includes repertoire by Handel and Mozart in Lisbon at Opera North in Leeds, Opera Northern Ireland in Belfast, Flanders Opera in Gent and Antwerpen, Staatstheater Mainz and as an annual guest from 1990-1998 at the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe. In 1999 he made his debut at the English National Opera with Gluck's Orpheus and at the Drottningholm Theatre Stockholm with a new Swedish opera Trädgården by Jonas Forssell. 2001 and 2002 include a return visit to Drottningholm for a new production of Giulio Cesare, and an invitation to Stuttgart and San Francisco Opera companies for a production of Alcina.
Ton Koopman was born in Zwolle in 1944 and studied organ, harpsichord and musicology in Amsterdam, being awarded the Prix d'Excellence for both organ and harpsichord. Even before completing his studies, he laid the foundations for a career as a conductor of seventeenth and eighteenth century music. His decision to use authentic instruments combined with a performing style based on thorough research and scholarship was a central theme from the start, though the quality of the performance was always paramount. Koopman's extensive and impressive activities as a soloist and conductor have been recorded frequently, for labels including Erato, Teldec, Philips and DGG.
Ton Koopman is currently engaged, as part of an exclusive agreement with the Time-Warner organisation, on projects to record all the cantatas and all the organ works by Johann Sebastian Bach, which will be completed in 2004. In September 1997 Ton Koopman was awarded the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis Echo Klassik for the Bach Cantatas. In October 1999 Ton Koopman conducted fully-staged performances of Handel's Samson, in collaboration with the Festival d'Ambronay and the European Union Baroque Orchestra, and in June 2000 Ton and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra co-operated with the Nederlandse Reisopera in performances of Mozart's Zauberflöte. Ton Koopman works not only with his own Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir; he is also chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra with whom he performs repertoire up to the mid-nineteenth century. He has long been associated with the European Union Baroque Orchestra which he has directed many times since its foundation in 1985 and in whose development he has played an important role. Ton Koopman publishes regularly, is Professor of Harpsichord at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and is an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Margaret Faultless was born in Birmingham. She graduated from Cambridge University with an MA in music in 1983, and continued her violin studies with Mark Lubotsky in Amsterdam. On returning to England, she founded and directed the prize-winning Academy Chamber Orchestra before becoming leader of the contemporary music ensemble Aquarius and co-leader of the Scottish Ballet Orchestra.
A long-standing interest in early repertoire developed into an enthusiasm for historical performance practice, and since then, she has toured and recorded extensively with leading ensembles including the London Classical Players, Academy of Ancient Music, Tavener Consort and Gainsborough Quartet.
Margaret is now co-leader of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, where the diverse repertoire has enabled her to work with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Mark Elder, Frans Brüggen and Ivan Fischer at major international venues including Glyndebourne and Covent Garden.
Following a highly successful tour of Japan in 1993, Margaret was invited to become leader of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under Ton Koopman. Their ambitious 10 year project to perform and record all the Bach Cantatas has already received wide critical acclaim. And it was with the ABO that she made her BBC Prom debut as a soloist in the 1997 season.
Margaret also enjoys coaching and giving masterclasses. She has worked as a tutor for the European Union Baroque Orchestra, and coached at the Royal Academy of Music in London, in Lyon, The Hague, Nuremberg and Cardiff.
Lars Ulrik Mortensen was born in 1955 and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen (harpsichord with Karen Englund, figured bass with Jesper Bøje Christensen) and with Trevor Pinnock in London. Extensive activity as a soloist and chamber-musician in Europe, the United States, Mexico, South America and Japan. From 1988 to 1990 Lars Ulrik Mortensen was harpsichordist with London Baroque and until 1993 with Collegium Musicum 90 (leader: Simon Standage). He is member of the Trio Veracini with John Holloway (violin) and David Watkin (cello), he performs regularly with distinguished soloists like John Holloway, Emma Kirkby and Jaap ter Linden, and in 1996 he was appointed professor for harpsichord and performance practice at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich.
Lars Ulrik Mortensen is also active as conductor, a. o. for the Scandinavian Baroque Orchestra Concerto Copenhagen, and he teaches at numerous courses for baroque music in Europe. He has recorded extensively for various labels including DGG-Archive, EMI and Kontrapunkt, and his recording of Bach's Goldberg-Variations was awarded the Diapason d'Or in France. 1995 saw the appearance of the first complete recording of Buxtehude's chamber music with John Holloway and Jaap ter Linden - this recording received the Danish Grammy-award for the best classical recording of the year - as well as a CD with music by Maurice Greene with Emma Kirkby, and since then recordings of violin-sonatas by Corelli and Schmelzer with John Holloway and cantatas by Buxtehude with Ema Kirkby were released, the latter also receiving a Danish Grammy.
Lars Ulrik Mortensen received a number of prizes and distinctions, among them the Danish Music Critics' Award in 1984.
Reinhard Goebel was born in 1952 and began his study of the violin at the age of twelve, developing a particular interest in early music at a very early stage. During Goebel's 'first life' as a violinist, he studied under Franzjosef Maier, leader of the collegium aureum, and Saschko Gawriloff, a world-renowned specialist in the technically demanding strands of contemporary music.
With the foundation, in 1973, of Musica Antiqua Köln and that group's subsequent exclusive contract with "Archiv Produktion", Reinhard Goebel established himself both as one of the foremost early music specialists on the continental circuit, and also as an authority in the field of the German Baroque. His recordings with Musica Antiqua Köln are now considered standard, and he has been showered with international awards and prizes, amongst them several "Grammophon Awards".
Shortly after recording Biber's Mystery Sonatas in 1990, a freak paralysis of his left hand abruptly ended Goebel's career as Konzertmeister of MAK, a role he had always performed from the violin. Mere weeks later, Goebel took the courageous decision to re-learn his instrument, this time holding it with the right hand, whilst continuing to direct and to conduct his ensemble during the years of his 'second apprenticeship'. David Stern (a son of the famous Isaac) assisted Goebel in his conducting, and Christiane Hutcap - an assistant of Igor Ozim - gave the 'grown-up beginner' violin lessons. Today, Goebel is once again able to conduct his ensemble from the violin, albeit only from second violin, holding the instrument with the right hand and the bow with the left.
Twenty years after first having resurrected the work of Jan Dismas Zelenka (who, like Heinichen, had been an artist of the Dresden Court) Goebel once again presented a previously neglected but important contemporary of Bach to the music world.
At the time that Goebel's recording of the Brandenburg Concerti was first released, his vigorous take on what is one of the great cornerstones of the German Baroque provoked widespread outrage and alarm amongst the whole Bach community. Today, no new recording of the Concerti can afford to ignore Goebel's once radical interpretation. As committed a student as ever, Goebel and his ensemble, MAK, continue to lead where others follow.
Paul Goodwin, for many years regarded as the foremost baroque oboist of his generation, is now firmly established as a conductor who brings all his background expertise to bear on his lively interpretations of a wide range of repertoire.
Goodwin's principal conducting posts are as Associate Conductor of The Academy of Ancient Music and as Principal Guest Conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra. Notable successes with The AAM have included performances of Mozart's neglected singspiel Zaïde in London, France and Spain, tours of Schütz and Monteverdi, the Mozart Requiem in the Montreux and Zurich Festivals and his conducting debut at the BBC Proms. Paul Goodwin has a long-standing relationship with Harmonia Mundi USA, to whom he introduced The AAM. Together they have recorded CDs, including Christmas music by Schütz and his contemporaries and Mozart's Zaïde, both highly acclaimed in the press.
Paul Goodwin's partnership with producer Jonathan Miller in their staged version of the Bach St Matthew Passion, was followed by regular opera productions such as his highly regarded Figaro and Il Re Pastore for Opera North, Handel's Agrippina in Karlsruhe, Handel's Amadigi with The AAM in Paris and Haydn's L'isola disabitata in Lisbon. Recent opera projects include Handel's Poro at the Halle Handel Festival, Gluck's Orfeo at the Opernhaus Halle, and Monteverdi's L'Incoronatione di Poppea for the Megaron Concert Hall in Athens.
Paul Goodwin is dedicated to educational projects and as such is Director of the Dartington International Summer School Baroque Orchestra and Early Opera at Dartington. He has worked with the Spanish Youth Orchestra, the Britten-Pears Orchestra, the European Union Baroque Orchestra, the Jeune Orchestre Atlantique, and the baroque and classical orchestras of the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music. He is intent on introducing students to the great variety of stylistic approaches to playing music of past centuries.
With the English Chamber Orchestra Paul Goodwin has a varied season of concerts, working with artists such as Kiri Te Kanawa and Joshua Bell, in repertoire by Canteloube, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Richard Strauss, Ravel and Stravinsky. He will be recording CDs with the ECO as well as with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. He has recently worked with the Camerata Academica Salzburg, Orchestre National de Lille, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
Paul Goodwin is keen to bring early instruments and contemporary music together and as such he is involved in commissioning contemporary pieces for The Academy of Ancient Music, the first of which was by John Tavener. Eternity's Sunrise was premiered in London in July 1998 to great acclaim, and Tavener's enthusiasm for the collaboration has led him to write a full length cantata, Total Eclipse, for the orchestra.
Andrew Manze "is one of the most highly respected figures on the early music scene today, much in demand as a soloist and director of period orchestras across Europe, a sought-after teacher with several international prizes for recordings made with his trio Romanesca and one of the most immediately recognisable violinists around." (The Strad)
He is not only a performer of violin repertoire from 1610 to 1830 but also, an orchestral director, occasional conductor, writer and broadcaster about many aspects of the 'early' music world.
After reading Classics at Cambridge University, he spent time at the Royal Academies of London and The Hague, studying with, among others, Simon Standage and Marie Leonhardt, before joining the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. He was concert-master of this orchestra until 1993 and recorded Vivaldi's Four Seasons with the ABO for Erato.
He is now Associate Director of the Academy of Ancient Music and appears as guest director of several orchestras, including La Stravaganza Köln, Concerto Copenhagen, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Hanover Band.
As a chamber musician he champions music of the 17th century in the ensemble Romanesca. Their first disc, of Vivaldi’s recently rediscovered 'Manchester' sonatas, won the 1993 'Premio Internazionale del Disco Vivaldi per la Musica Antica Italiana' and their Biber Sonatas were awarded Gramophone, Cannes and Edison awards. Manze is now an exclusive artist with Harmonia Mundi and also appears regularly on British national radio (BBC), playing and presenting programmes such as 'Composer of the Week' and 'Music Restored'.
The 2001/2 season comprises solo concerts in sixteen countries, including Canada, the USA and South America. He is a tutor and director of the European Union Baroque Orchestra and professor of baroque violin at the Royal College of Music in London.
Born in Rome in 1961, Alfredo Bernardini moved to The Netherlands in 1981 to specialise in baroque oboe and early music with, among others, Bruce Haynes and Ku Ebbinge, and received his soloist diploma from The Royal Conservatory of The Hague. In 1985 he was a member of the very first European Union Baroque Orchestra. Since then, he has performed all over Europe, the USA, Japan, China, Israel, Egypt, Australia and South America as a member of major baroque ensembles such as Hesperion XX, Le Concert des Nations, La Petite Bande, The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Das Freiburger Barockorchester, The English Concert and Bach Collegium Japan. In 1989 Alfredo Bernardini founded the ensemble ZEFIRO together with the brothers Paolo and Alberto Grazzi. He has taken part to some 100 recordings; among others, his CD of Vivaldi oboe concertos won the Cannes Classical Award 1995. With his ensemble ZEFIRO he collaborated with Belgian Television on a documentary film on Antonio Vivaldi. Alfredo Bernardini's research on the history of woodwind musical instruments has resulted in several articles published by important international magazines. Since 1992 he has been teaching baroque oboe at the Conservatory of Amsterdam.
Edward Higginbottom's early years were marked by distinction as a keyboard player. On winning his Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists before even leaving school he was singled out as the most outstanding candidate of his year. An organ scholarship to Corpus Christi Cambridge formed his apprenticeship as a conductor, and he gained early recognition at home and abroad as director of the Cambridge University Purcell Society, one of the very first English early music groups to perform regularly in France.
Graduate work in Paris deepened his contacts abroad as he studied organ with Marie-Claire Alain while writing a doctoral thesis on French performance practice. His love of French culture has borne fruit in editions of François Couperin's chamber music, many recording projects featuring French music, and frequent invitations for the Choir to sing in France and further afield. He is sought after as president of international music competitions, and as consultant. The French Ministry of Culture has rewarded him with the honour 'Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres' for his role in the revival of choir schools in France.
Edward Higginbottom was appointed Director of New College Oxford at the unusually young age of 29. Here academic and practical interests have continued to flourish in tandem; he teaches a number of specialisms (including performance practice) within the Oxford Music faculty, when he is not directing the choir. He publishes within the areas of his expertise, recently contributing chapters to the Cambridge Companion to the Organ and to The New Grove. He is able to bring to the work of New College Choir an extensive knowledge of choral repertory and performance.
styles. Under his direction the Choir has achieved international recognition and brought music-making of a very high quality to an increasingly wide-ranging public through its many concert tours and some 70 recordings. The choir has become renowned for its interpretations of Renaissance and Baroque music, and latterly for its choral compilations which encompass music from folk-song to Tavener and Part. Indeed an objective of the Choir has been to sing a particularly wide-range of music, in the conviction that music-making is revitalised by the challenges of an eclectic repertory.
Under the leadership of Edward Higginbottom, the Choir of New College Oxford has achieved a worldwide reputation. At the same time it is still recognisably what the founder of New College, William of Wykeham, envisaged in the fourteenth century: a choir of sixteen choristers and clerks whose duty was and still is to provide a sung liturgy in the grandest chapel to be built in Oxford. The Choir's excellence has been recognised by frequent appearances at the BBC Promenade concerts, and by many invitations to perform to audience abroad (foreign tours to Australia, Brazil, France, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland, the low Countries, Germany, and Malta). Its numerous recordings (over 70 CDs in the current catalogues) range from specialist collections (like the compilation of sacred music drawn uniquely from the Archives of Malta Cathedral) to popular anthologies of choral music (such as "Agnus Dei", which went straight to the top of the classical charts, and has sold 300,000 copies worldwide). The Choir collaborated with The King's Consort in their recordings of the complete sacred music of Henry Purcell, and Handel's oratorios. Another recent strand in the recording activities of the Choir has been its series "Masterpieces of the Renaissance" for Collins Classics, featuring Lassus, du Caurroy, de Monte and other great polyphonists of the 16th century. New releases include "Bluebird" (Decca), the first recorded performance of John Taverner's Total Eclipse, and a Renaissance recording for Erato "Sancte Deus", including Tallis' 40-part motet Spem in alium. The Choir's touring schedule takes in a number of European countries on a regular basis, often in the company of The academy of Ancient Music. Recent projects have included concerts at the Ambronay Festival (Handel coronation anthems), the Chapelle Royale at Versailles (Charpentier's Messe des morts) and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam (Messiah). In the planning stage are visits to Canada, Japan and Brazil, and further collaborations with The Academy of Ancient Music.
Fabio Biondi is one of the most important and influential figures of the Baroque period-instrument movement. Born in Palermo, he studied the violin with both Salvatore Cicerto and Mauro lo Guercio before making his concerto debut with the Italian Radio Symphony Orchestra at the age of twelve. He gave his first recital on a Baroque violin in Vienna's Musikverein when he was sixteen and went on to work with such distinguished groups as La Capella Real, Musica Antiqua Vienna and Il Seminario musicale, before founding his own ensemble, Europa Galante, in 1989.
With Biondi as soloist and director, Europa Galante's performances of Italian Baroque music in particular rapidly established them as one of the foremost ensembles in the world. Biondi's desire to free period performance of stifling convention and musicological dogma has resulted in some of the most spontaneous and impassioned performances of this inexhaustible repertoire in modern times.
Europa Galante offers concert programmes ranging from chamber music to cantatas, involving between four and thirty musicians. During the last two years the ensemble has performed the world premieres of Leonardo Leo's Sant' Elena al Calvario and Alessandro Scarlatti's Massimo Puppieno and Clori, Dorino e Amore. In 2001, for the inaugural Parma Verdi Festival, Europa Galante will present Bellini's Norma in a premiere performance on original instruments.
Fabio Biondi's recordings with Europa Galante have been universally acclaimed. The group's many prestigious awards include the Académie Charles Cros, Diapason d'Or de l'Année, Prix RTL and Grand Prix du Discophile. 'Listening to these performances [of L'estro armonico for Virgin]', reported Gramophone magazine, 'I once again felt some of the thrill and excitement that affected me on hearing this music for the very first time, in the mid-1950s. It's wonderful stuff, rejuvenating and immensely satisfying.'
In 1998 Fabio Biondi signed an exclusive contract with Virgin Classics as soloist and director of Europa Galante. Following three highly successful concerto discs, including Vivaldi's L'estro armonico, he released in March 2001 his first chamber recording with members of the group - string quintets by Boccherini, which Gramophone immediately labelled 'essential'. This summer sees the much-anticipated release of a new recording of Vivaldi's Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, the set of 12 violin concertos that includes the Four Seasons, for which Biondi has studied original manuscripts in Manchester, Dresden and Turin.
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