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    20th Anniversary

    “The spontaneity of improvised jazz and the perfection of state-of-the-art Early Music… a stupendous mixture of historical accuracy and improvisatory freedom… breaking the concert mould… music-theatrical fascination… stunning…virtuosity… without rival… Spanish Humour…French elegance…  thrilling… a magical collage of text, sound and dance:  The fabulous Harp Consort!”
    So critics have acclaimed Andrew Lawrence-King’s ensemble, which made its debut at the 1994 Utrecht Festival. The Harp Consort was  immediately in demand on the concert platform and in the recording studio: “assured, crackling with energy and style” in Purcell’s Musick’s Hand-Maid; “delightful, exuberant, full of flair and virtuosity, and very beautiful” in Exquisite Consorts, William Lawes’ suites ‘for the Harp Consort’. 
    But it was their first CD, the Spanish Dances of Ribayaz’s Luz y Norte – “fascinatingly vivid and imaginatively varied… a joyous experience, not to be missed” – that topped the classical charts worldwide (five weeks at #1 in Australia!), won innumerable awards (including Amadeus’ CD of the year and a Diapason d’Or) and (along with two songs by John Paul Jones) brought The Harp Consort to international cult status.
     
    As THC’s award-winning record- producer, John Hadden, writes:  “The rest is history!” 
    In concert, dancer/guitarist Steven Player and Andrew Lawrence-King developed Luz y norte – “energy, passion & undisguised joie de vivre explode from the CD” – into a stage-show “the most remarkable concert of 17th-century music I have ever heard…rhythmic & exciting, gallant, exuberant, even comic: a Gesamtkunstwerk in the very best sense”, which has toured in Europe, Scandinavia, the Americas, Australia & New Zealand and Japan, has been televised on three continents and broadcast on radio worldwide. 

    20 YEARS OF THC HISTORY

    94  Cantigas in Paardenkathedraal

    95  Madrid Auditorio Nacional, Kuhmo

    96  USA tour, Vivaldi Four Seasons

    97  Sydney Opera House, Wigmore, Berlin Phil

    98  Carnegie Hall, Vienna Konzerthaus

    99  Mexico, Warsaw Phil, Kings Singers

    00 Euridice, Vespers, La Scala

    01  Japan, Mexico, 1589 Intermedi

    02 USA, Israel, Estonian Philharmonic Choir

    03 Locatelli concerto, Púrpura

    04 Valls Missa Scala Aretina, Almira

    05 Japan, Tasmania, The Harp DVD

    06 Oratorio, Glasgow, Helsinki

    07  Buxtehude EBU, Ludus Danielis

    08  Stockholm TV, Piae Cantiones

    09  Handel EBU,  Moscow Phil, Florence

    10  Missa Battalla, Australia, Slovenia

    11  Orfeo, Ludus Danielis, Euridice

    12  Combattimento, Kalevala, Dido

    13  Shakespeare’s Musick, Morte d’Orfeo

    14 Monteverdi Vespers, 6 Brandenburgs

     

    TOP 20 Discs

    Luz y norte

    Exquisite Consorts

    Musick’s Hand-Maid

    John Paul Jones

    Carolan’s Harp

    Four Seasons

    Italian Concerto

    La púrpura de la rosa

    Ludus Danielis

    Spanish Gypsies

    Almira

    Jácaras

    Fire-Water

    Il Zazzerino

    Chorégraphie

    Missa Mexicana

    Miracles de Notre Dame

    Arte de Fantasia

    Les Travailleurs de la Mer

    The Harp DVD

    20 CELEBRATORY PROGRAMS

     

    Favola in Musica: with Marco Beasley

    Combattimento with 17th-cent rapiers

    Luz y norte: Spanish dances

    Missa Mexicana: Puebla cathedral

    Chorégraphie: Louis XIV dances

    Medieval Kalevala: Northland Magic

    Carolan’s Harp: Airs, jigs & planxties

    Arte de Fantasia: Spanish golden age

    Spanish Oratorio: Luzbel & the Angel

    Ludus Danielis: Medieval 'opera'

    Miracles: medieval pop songs for Mary

    Italian Concerto: Handel, Bach & Vivaldi

    Ho gran Rey do Plotugal: Lisboa/Mexico 

    Les Travailleurs de la Mer: Guernsey

    Passacalles y Tonos: Adriana Fernández

    Heavenly Music: with Xavier Diaz Latorre

    Anima e Corpo: the first opera

    Dido & Aeneas: with Historical Action

    Shakespeare's Musick: Hamlet & Love

    Vespers of San Giovanni: Monteverdi

     

    Improvisation and early World Music continued with the CD and stage-show Carolan’s Harp, ”the marvelous early music counterpart to ‘Riverdance’… the virtuosity of the instrumentalists is matched by the spirit and style of the singers.” and new perspectives on Handel,Vivaldi & Bach in Italian Concerto, awarded the German Phonographic Academy’s Echo Prize. The revival of the first South American opera, La púrpura de la rosa (Lima, Peru, 1701),  won the Noah Greenberg Prize for musicological research, and Andrew’s Lawrence-King’s direction of Handel’s first opera Almira won the American Handel Society’s prize for Opera CD of the Year.
    Andrew Lawrence-King greeted the new millennium by directing the 400-year anniversary production of Peri’s Euridice at the Los Angeles Getty Centre. The Harp Consort’s UK Classical Chart #1  &  London Times CD of the Year Missa Mexicana received its concert debut at La Scala, Milan "Ella Fitzgerald meets the 17th century", and Miracles of Notre Dame, London Daily Telegraph CD of the Year, won the Dutch Edison Prize. The ensemble staged the medieval Ludus Danielis in Kings College, Cambridge and York Minster, opened a new concert hall in Glasgow, and made its Russian debut in wintry Siberia! 
    In 2005, Andrew began a three- year Arts & Humanities Research Council Fellowship at Sheffield University, investigating Hispanic baroque music. This led to the first performance in modern times of the earliest Spanish Oratorio, and staged productions of Púrpura and the earliest Spanish opera, Hidalgo’s Celos aun del aire matan.
    Andrew’s current research as Senior Visiting Research Fellow for the Australian Centre for the History of Emotions has established him as an international authority on early opera and baroque gesture, and this year he won the prestigious Helpmann Award for his duo recital in Melbourne with Jordi Savall, as well as Russia’s highest music-theatrical   prize, the Golden Mask, for the first opera, Cavalieri’s Anima e Corpo.
    These successes also influence the latest developments with The Harp Consort, spinning-off research projects (Landi’s La Morte d’Orfeo, the medieval Kalevala & Monteverdi’s Combattimento with 17th-century swordsmanship), international collaborations (with Marco Beasley and Xavier Diaz Latorre) and orchestral projects (both modern and early) into new THC programs, and creating the early opera and Historical Action production company, Il Corago.
    “The ancient art of improvisation is revived in grand style by the liberating performance of The Harp Consort, directed by the harpist, Andrew Lawrence-King, a marvellous modern-day magician… Early Music comes to life, as if it had been written only yesterday, and sounds more modern than a lot of new music! … Extremely beautiful and intelligently provocative in its life between the areas of art-music and popular traditions, and in its exploration of little known and hither-to uncelebrated  baroque music… The Harp Consort makes old music new.”
    Details of Anniversary programs here

    2010 - present

    2010 - present

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