Gabrieli Consort & Players - NOSPR

“May the Gabrieli Consort & Players live forever in health and glory!” The Times

Gabrieli Consort & Players are world-renowned interpreters of great vocal and instrumental repertoire from the Renaissance to the present day. Formed as an early-music ensemble by Paul McCreesh in 1982, we have both outgrown and remained true to our original identity. Over more than 35 years, our repertoire has expanded beyond any expectation, but McCreesh's ever-questioning spirit and expressive musicianship, together with a healthy degree of iconoclasm, remain constant features of the ensemble’s dynamic performances. We perform major works of the oratorio tradition, virtuosic a cappella programmes of music from many centuries and mould-breaking reconstructions of music from historical events.
Gabrieli are acclaimed interpreters of Handel’s oratorios and Bach’s passions and our recordings have garnered numerous international awards, including Gramophone Awards for recordings of Haydn’s The Creation (Choral Award 2008) and A New Venetian Coronation 1595 (Early Music Award 2012), BBC Music Magazine Awards for Berlioz’s Grande Messe des morts and Britten’s War Requiem, and a Grammy nomination in 2010 for the a cappella disc A Spotless Rose.
A number of strong relationships have defined our international profile over many years and such partnerships remain at the heart of our activities. For over 15 years, in conjunction with Martin Randall Travel, we have pioneered new areas of ‘cultural tourism’ in creating festivals of music in European historic centres, developing new programmes specifically inspired by the exquisite buildings and cities in which they are performed. We were resident artists at Brinkburn Music in Northumberland, with whom we developed some of our most exciting projects over 17 years. From 2006 to 2012 we were associate artists of the Wratislavia Cantans Festival, and subsequently embarked on an exciting partnership with the Wrocław Philharmonic Choir, a collaboration which features strongly in some of our critically acclaimed recent oratorio recordings.
Beyond the concert hall, Gabrieli is committed to the ongoing development of Gabrieli Roar, an audacious choral training programme that takes a bold stance on the abilities of teenage singers. This ambitious partnership with a network of leading UK youth choirs offers intensive training and mentoring to young singers to prepare them for unrivalled performance and recording opportunities alongside Gabrieli’s professional musicians. Early successes in this scheme include a BBC Proms performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah and studio recordings of Elijah and Britten’s War Requiem. Gabrieli Roar’s inaugural performance under its new name took place in February 2016 at Southwark Cathedral, followed by a large-scale celebration of Anglican choral repertoire at Ely Cathedral in July 2016. Subsequent projects include Haydn’s masses, Purcell and Praetorius programmes and An English Coronation, a spectacular large-scale recreation of music from the 20th century’s four coronations.
In addition to our renowned live performances, Gabrieli aims to create inspirational and thought-provoking recordings that stand out from the crowd. In 2011, Paul McCreesh established his own record label, Winged Lion, which in its first year alone released four extremely diverse recordings, underlining Gabrieli’s versatility and McCreesh’s breadth of vision. The focal point of Winged Lion’s output is the Wratislavia Cantans Oratorio Series, spectacular large-scale oratorio recordings made in conjunction with the Wrocław Philharmonic Choir with the kind support of the National Forum of Music, Wrocław. There are now four recordings in this series: Berlioz’s Grande Messe des morts, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Britten’s War Requiem and Haydn’s The Seasons, released in 2017 to universal acclaim.
The Winged Lion catalogue also includes four of Gabrieli’s beloved a cappella programmes, A Song of Farewell (English choral repertoire from Morley and Sheppard to Howells and MacMillan), Incarnation (an inspiring sequence of lesser-known Christmas music), Silence & Music (a movingly introspective survey of English part-song in the 20th century) and A Rose Magnificat (works devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary from the Renaissance to the present day); as well as A New Venetian Coronation 1595 (the much-anticipated re-recording of the ensemble’s famed 1990 reconstruction featuring music by Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli) and Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (our first Handel’s recording in more than a decade). Recent and future releases include Purcell’s King Arthur and The Fairy Queen, and An English Coronation.
Gabrieli’s reputation for award-winning recordings was established during a 15-year association with Deutsche Grammophon. Our current Winged Lion releases are equally regarded as benchmark recordings, receiving accolades that include BBC Music Magazine Awards (Berlioz’s Grande Messe des morts, Britten’s War Requiem, A Rose Magnificat), a Gramophone Classical Music Award (A New Venetian Coronation 1595) and a Diapason d’Or (Mendelssohn’s Elijah).