NEW LONDON CONSORT • BIOGRAPHY
One of the world's leading early music ensembles, Philip Pickett's versatile New London Consort explores a uniquely wide and colourful repertoire of Renaissance and Baroque music presented in interesting and carefully planned programmes designed to combine the very best in scholarship and entertainment.
The principal artists, all established soloists in their own right, share a rare unanimity of purpose and style, resulting in the New London Consort's undisputed reputation for artistry, flair and virtuosity.
Their concerts and recordings, while frequently including first modern performances of unpublished, undiscovered or reconstructed masterpieces, also shed unexpected and often controversial new light on more familiar works.
The Consort is a regular visitor to major festivals and concert halls throughout the world. Most recent performances have included a world tour of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (directed by Jonathan Miller) with performances throughout the UK as well as in The Netherlands, France, Norway, Poland, Spain, Israel and Mexico; Bach’s Easter Oratorio at the Perth International Arts Festival and Strasbourg Philharmonie; Purcell’s The Indian Queen in Spain and France; Purcell/Eccles’ Don Quixote at the Cité de la Musique in Paris; and Handel's Acis & Galatea at the Sage Gateshead and Cité de la Musique in Paris. In 2009 the Consort completed a European tour of their reconstructed Dido & Aeneas 1700 (directed by Jonathan Miller) with performances in major festivals and concert halls in the UK, Spain, The Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Luxembourg and Austria. Among future plans the Consort will perform a new production of Purcell's The Fairy Queen (directed by Neil Wallace) in major European concert halls throughout 2011.
As well as appearing frequently at London's South Bank Centre (where the Consort was resident ensemble between 1996-2005) the Consort regularly performs at the leading British arts festivals and has undertaken five nationwide Early Music Network tours.
Much of the Consort's repertoire has been broadcast by BBC Radio 3 (more than 120 programmes including eight concerts at the Proms), and members of the Consort have provided music for many BBC Radio Drama productions.
On television the Consort was featured in the BBC Music in Time series, the BBC2 Music in Camera series and both of the Westminster Abbey Purcell Centenary concerts in 1995.
Major film and TV soundtracks include Channel 4’s Tales from the Decameron, the BBC TV Shakespeare Series, Lady Jane, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, A Man for all Seasons, Hamlet, Dangerous Beauty, Nostradamus and Elizabeth.
The New London Consort has recorded more than 40 CDs for Decca Classics, a series of CDs for Linn Records and a CD of Music for Queen Mary with the Choir of Westminster Abbey.