Ex Cathedra is a leading British choir and early music ensemble based in Birmingham in the West Midlands, England. It performs choral music spanning the 15th to 21st centuries, and regularly commissions new works.
William Cornysh the Younger was an English composer, dramatist, actor, and poet.
John Sheppard was an English composer of the Renaissance.
The Eton Choirbook is a richly illuminated manuscript collection of English sacred music composed during the late 15th century. It was one of very few collections of Latin liturgical music to survive the Reformation, and hence is an important source. It originally contained music by 24 different composers; however, many of the pieces are damaged or incomplete. It is one of three large choirbooks surviving from early-Tudor England.
The Tallis Scholars is a British professional early music vocal ensemble normally consisting of two singers per part, with a core group of ten singers. They specialise in performing a cappella sacred vocal music.
The Cardinall's Musick is a United Kingdom-based vocal ensemble specialising in music of the 16th and 17th centuries and contemporary music. It was founded by the scholar and musicologist David Skinner and the singer / director Andrew Carwood.
Andrew Carwood is the Director of Music at St Paul's Cathedral in London and director of his own group, The Cardinall's Musick.
Robert Fayrfax was an English Renaissance composer, considered the most prominent and influential of the reigns of Kings Henry VII and Henry VIII of England.
The Lambeth Choirbook – also known as the Arundel Choirbook – is an illuminated choirbook dating to the sixteenth century. It contains music for 7 Masses, 4 Magnificats, and 8 motets. Much of the music is by Tudor-period composers. The major contributors are Robert Fayrfax and Nicholas Ludford; between them they contributed at least ten of its nineteen pieces. Only three of Fayrfax's works have his name attached to them, but five other pieces are known as his; these, along with two by Ludford, are known from concordances in the Caius Choirbook and other manuscripts. Seven anonymous pieces exist in the book:
The Caius Choirbook is an illuminated choirbook dating to the early sixteenth century and containing music by Tudor-period composers. The book appears to originate from Arundel in Sussex, and to have been created sometime in the late 1520s; the then Master of Arundel College, Edward Higgons, seems to have presented it to the collegiate chapel of Saint Stephen's in Westminster, where he was a canon beginning in 1518. The choirbook is now housed at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
Stephen David Layton is an English conductor.
Nicholas Ludford was an English composer of the Tudor period. He is known for his festal masses, which are preserved in two early-16th-century choirbooks, the Caius Choirbook at Caius College, Cambridge, and the Lambeth Choirbook at Lambeth Palace, London. His surviving antiphons, all incomplete, are copied in the Peterhouse Partbooks. Ludford is well-known as being the composer of the only surviving cycle of Lady Masses, small-scale settings of the Ordinary and Propers in three parts to be sung in the smaller chapels of religious institutions on each day of the week. Ludford's composing career, which appears to have ended in 1535, is seen as bridging the gap between the music of Robert Fayrfax and that of John Taverner (1495–1545). Music scholar David Skinner has called Ludford "one of the last unsung geniuses of Tudor polyphony". In his Oxford History of English Music, John Caldwell observes of Ludford's six-part Mass and Magnificat Benedicta that it "is more a matter of astonishment that such mastery should be displayed by a composer of whom virtually nothing was known until modern times".
Alamire is an English vocal consort specialising in medieval and Renaissance music, both secular and religious. It was founded by David Skinner in 2005, and very swiftly won praise for the quality and imagination of its recordings. "The performances fairly glow, and so does one's spirit after traversing this glorious programme."
Ruth Holton is an English soprano singer.
The Choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge is a Cambridge collegiate choir, under the direction of the musicologist and conductor David Skinner, with Senior Organ Scholar Luca Myers and Junior Organ Scholar Francis Fowler. The composer Eric Whitacre spent three months in the College in 2010, later being appointed Composer in Residence for five years. The current composer in residence is Nico Muhly.
The Gift of Music is an English record label specializing in nostalgia, classical, folk, and historical-themed compilation recordings. The unusual aspect of the record label is that its marketing strategy is focussed on sales at museums, National Trust houses, and other British and Irish tourist attractions rather than focussed on traditional music retail markets. The label's releases are usually designed around historical themes likely to complement museums and tourist attractions, and issues include both re-issued recordings and new commissions.
Magdala is an English early music group founded by David Skinner (musicologist).
Geoffrey Webber is a musician and academic, and the former Director of Music at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts (HMSC) is a British early music group founded in 1982. The ensemble presently consists of three cornetts and four sackbuts, with chamber organ or harpsichord. The group frequently collaborates with other instrumentalists and singers, and has an extensive discography on Hyperion Records and other labels.
The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble are an early music group specializing in music for cornett and sackbut. Formed in 1993, they perform in early music concerts and festivals on period instruments.
