Alfred George Deller, CBE, was an English singer and one of the main figures in popularising the return of the countertenor voice in Renaissance and Baroque music during the 20th century.
Historically informed performance is an approach to the performance of classical music, which aims to be faithful to the approach, manner and style of the musical era in which a work was originally conceived.
A Baroque orchestra is an ensemble for mixed instruments that existed during the Baroque era of Western Classical music, commonly identified as 1600–1750. Baroque orchestras are typically much smaller, in terms of the number of performers, than their Romantic-era counterparts. Baroque orchestras originated in France where Jean-Baptiste Lully added the newly re-designed hautbois (oboe) and transverse flutes to his orchestra, Les Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi. As well as violins and woodwinds, baroque orchestras often contained basso continuo instruments such as the theorbo, the lute, the harpsichord and the pipe organ.
The Taverner Choir, Consort and Players is a British music ensemble which specialises in the performance of Early and Baroque music. The ensemble is made up of a Baroque orchestra, a vocal consort and a Choir. Performers place emphasis on a historically informed performance practice and players work with restored or replicated period instruments.
The general discussion of how to perform music from ancient or earlier times did not become an important subject of interest until the 19th century, when Europeans began looking to ancient culture generally, and musicians began to discover the musical riches from earlier centuries. The idea of performing early music more "authentically", with a sense of incorporating performance practice, was more completely established in the 20th century, creating a modern early music revival that continues today.
Apollo's Fire, The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra is a popular and critically acclaimed period-instrument ensemble specializing in early music based in Cleveland, Ohio. The GRAMMY-winning ensemble unites a select pool of early music specialists from throughout North America and Europe. Under the direction of Artistic Director Jeannette Sorrell, the ensemble has been noted internationally for creative and innovative programming, and praised by BBC Music Magazine for "forging a vibrant, life-affirming approach to early music... a seductive vision of musical authenticity."
Melinda O'Neal is a conductor of choral and choral-orchestral music, professor emerita of music, and author.
Based in Baltimore, Maryland, four ensembles comprise the GBYO, the full-sized symphonic Youth Orchestra, the intermediate-level Concert Orchestra, and the beginning-level Sinfonia and Sinfonietta ensembles. GBYO also offers a "Bridges" program, providing entry-level instruction to underserved youth in the city. The GBYO ensembles are in residence at Loyola College in Maryland.
John Moran is an American musician and musicologist. He specializes in historically informed performance of music from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries on the cello and viola da gamba. He studied cello and baroque cello at the Oberlin Conservatory, baroque cello at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, and musicology at King's College London. He has performed and recorded with numerous groups in Europe, including Les Musiciens du Louvre, The Consort of Musicke, English Baroque Soloists. Since 1994 he has lived in the Washington, DC area. He is a regular member of REBEL, a New York based baroque ensemble and the music director of Modern Musick, a Washington period-instrument ensemble. He has also appeared with Opera Lafayette, the Washington Bach Consort, the Folger Consort, the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Players. He teaches viola da gamba and baroque cello at the Peabody Conservatory, where he is also co-director of the Baltimore Baroque Band. He is currently President of the Viola da Gamba Society of America.
Rachel Podger is a British violinist and conductor specialising in the performance of Baroque music.
Nigel North is an English lutenist, musicologist, and pedagogue.
Charles Daniels is an English tenor, particularly noted for his performances of baroque music. He is a frequent soloist with The King's Consort, and has made over 25 recordings with the ensemble on the Hyperion label.
Robert Mealy is a performer and teacher of baroque violin. He holds a joint position at the Yale School of Music and the Department of Music of Yale University, where he directs the Yale Collegium Musicum and teaches classes in musical rhetoric and historically-informed performance. He has recorded over 50 CDs of early music, ranging from Hildegard of Bingen with Sequentia, to Renaissance consorts with the Boston Camerata, to Rameau operas with Les Arts Florissants. At home in New York, he is a frequent leader and soloist with the New York Collegium, Early Music New York, the Clarion Music Society, and the ARTEK early music ensemble.
John Butt is an English orchestral and choral conductor, organist, harpsichordist and scholar. He holds the Gardiner Chair of Music at the University of Glasgow and is music director of the Dunedin Consort with whom he has made award-winning recordings in historically informed performance. He is a prolific scholar, conductor and performer of works by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Valentin Radu is founder, artistic director and conductor of Vox Ama Deus, with performances at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia and other various city, suburban, and Main Line area venues, has led numerous orchestras and vocal ensembles in Europe and the U.S., including the Hungarian National Philharmonic, Bucharest, Arad, Oradea Philharmonics, the Budapest Chamber Orchestra and the Romania National Radio Orchestra. In 1996 he conducted the Bucharest Philharmonic in Handel's Messiah, and in 1997 led the Romanian National Radio Orchestra in Handel's Acis and Galatea.
Music of the Baroque is an American professional chorus and orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois.
Mindy Rosenfeld is an American flutist, piper and harpist, noted as a founding member of the Baltimore Consort, specializing in Renaissance music. She is also credited as Mindy Rosenfeld Hedges.
The Texas Early Music Project is a performing arts ensemble based in Austin, Texas, that focuses on bringing audiences a closer knowledge and appreciation of Baroque music, Medieval music, Renaissance music, and early Classical-period music. The group uses historical instruments in keeping with historically informed performance practice. The ensemble was founded in 1987 by Daniel Johnson, who remains the group's artistic director. The group is classified as a non-profit organization and operates primarily on grant money and donations for individual and corporate supporters. Income is supplemented by ticket sales and merchandise sales. Texas Early Music Project is a member of Early Music America. Performers are primarily professional musicians from the Austin area, although performers visit from Texas at large, from all over the United States, and occasionally internationally.
Dunedin Consort is Scotland's leading baroque ensemble based in Edinburgh, Scotland, recognised for its vivid and insightful performances and recordings. Formed in 1995 and named after Din Eidyn, the ancient Brittonic Celtic name of Edinburgh Castle, Dunedin Consort’s ambition is to make early music newly relevant to the present day. Performing on period instruments, with choruses often numbering just one to a part, the group presents concerts that are both intimate and invigorating, often aiming to recreate the music as it was originally intended. Under the direction of John Butt, this has seen the ensemble earn two coveted Gramophone Awards – for the 2007 recording of Handel’s Messiah and the 2014 recording of Mozart’s Requiem – and a Grammy nomination. In 2018 it was shortlisted for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in the Ensemble category.
