Choir of The King's Consort

For more than 30 years The King’s Consort has ranked among the leading period-instrument ensembles. Together with the Choir of The King’s Consort, it was founded in 1980 by Robert King. The focus of its repertoire is on music of the Renaissance and baroque; but the ensemble also performs works of the classical and early-romantic eras. The King’s Consort has made tours to North and South America, to Asia, and through-out most of Europe. Especially no-table are the ensemble’s seven performances (to date) at the BBC Proms, a performance of Mozart’s Requiem at the Alhambra in Granada, and the opening concert for the Purcell festivities in the 1995 anniversary year, which was telecast by the BBC, as well as numerous opera projects. During the 2011-12 season, the ensemble has performed Bach’s B minor Mass at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona and Handel’s Messiah as part of a Spanish tour and has appeared in a production of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen at the Theater an der Wien. The King’s Consort has addi-tionally become known for such spectacular musical-historical  reconstructions as the coronation ceremony of King George II in 1727 and the celebrations of Ascension Day from the Venetian early baroque (“Lo Sposalizio”). The King’s Consort has a discography numbering almost 100 titles, including a highly acclaimed cycle of the complete sacred music of Claudio Monteverdi, the first complete recording of all of Purcell’s Odes and Solo Songs as well as his sacred music, and a complete recording of the sacred music of Vivaldi. The ensemble’s recording of the Requiem and Missa in honorem Sanctae Ursulae by Michael Haydn won the BBC Music Magazine’s choral music award.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 25 March 1999 in Handel’s La Resurrezione di Nostro Signor Gesù Cristo.

March 2012