Magdalena Consort

:: singers
NB: these biographies are only for information.
Please contact the artists' agents or the Magdalena
Consort for up-to-date versions for use in programmes.

soprano

Canadian soprano Gillian Keith was the winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Awards in 2000. She is in great demand for performances in recital, oratorio and opera. She has earned praise particularly for her interpretations of Baroque music, and has recorded Handel's Gloria with John Eliot Gardiner on the Philips label. She is equally respected for her song performances and has recorded a disc of early Debussy chansons for the Deux-Elles label. Gillian has appeared in principal roles with English National Opera and Scottish Opera.

"And Keith certainly knew how to communicate. Her engagement with Shakespeare's words as they were new-born in Richard Strauss's setting of the Three Ophelia Songs was intense. And she played on her voice as on an instrument, shaping and colouring the melodic line in its every nuance." - Hilary Finch, The Times
alto

The countertenor Daniel Taylor is now one of the most sought-after countertenors in the world and recognized as "Canada's star countertenor...there is a sense of conviction and honesty that sets him apart from the others" (Globe and Mail). His debut at Glyndebourne in Handel's Theodora was greeted with critical praise and followed on his highly successful operatic debut in Jonathan Miller's production of Handel's Rodelinda.

He receives invitations from an ever-widening circle of the world's leading early and contemporary music ensembles, appearing in opera (Metropolitan Opera, Glyndebourne, San Francisco, Rome, Welsh National Opera, Canadian Opera, Opera North and Munich), oratorio (Gabrieli Consort, Monteverdi Choir/English Baroque Soloists, Bach Collegium Japan, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Les Arts Florissants, Berlin Academie fur Alte Musik, Collegium vocale de Ghent, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, King's Consort, Academy of Ancient Music), symphonic works (Dallas, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Toronto, Rotterdam, Montreal), recital (Vienna Konzerthaus; Frick Collection, New York; Forbidden Concert Hall, Beijing; Lufthansa Baroque Festival and Wigmore Hall, London), and film (Podeswa's Five Senses for Fineline-winner at Cannes and also of a Genie). Chamber music also features prominently in his calendar and he regularly joins forces with the Berlin Academie fur Alte Musik, Fretwork and The King's Consort.

Daniel Taylor has made more than 60 recordings, which include Bach Cantatas/Monteverdi Choir/Gardiner for Deutche Gramophone and SDG. Renaissance duets with James Bowman (BIS), Handel's Rinaldo with Bartoli /AAM/Hogwood (DECCA),Theodora with LAF/Christie (ERATO), Cantatas "Before Bach" with Collegium Vocale de Ghent/Herrewege (Harmonia Mundi) Sakamoto's pop-opera Life with the Dalai Lama (SONY) and Bach Cantatas with the Bach Collegium Japan (BIS). Upcoming recordings include a CD/DVD at Maitrise Notre-Dame in Paris of the B minor Mass of J. S. Bach with John Nelson/L'ensemble Orchestral de Paris (for EMI) and Handel's Jephtha with Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort for Deutsche Gramophone Archiv.

tenor

James Gilchrist's concert appearances include Damon in Acis and Galatea at the Proms (Academy of Ancient Music/Paul Goodwin), Bach cantatas with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra in their celebrated Bach Pilgrimage (Sir John Eliot Gardiner/Europe - America), Tippett's The Knot Garden (Sir Andrew Davis/BBC Symphony Orchestra), Monteverdi Vespers and Messiah (The Sixteen/Japan), Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance and Ralph in HMS Pinafore (Scottish Chamber Orchestra), the title role in Judas Maccabeus (The King's Consort), Septimius Theodora (Scottish Chamber Orchestra), Israel in Egypt (St Louis Symphony Orchestra, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Collegium Vocale Gent and SCO), B Minor Mass (Semyon Bychkov/Turin and Santa Caecilia in Rome), Mozart Requiem (Seattle Symphony Orchestra), L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato and a televised performance of Berlioz L'enfance du Christ at the BBC Proms (Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra), Alexander's Feast in Salzburg, Bach's Christmas Oratorio with Ton Koopman and the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zürich, the Evangelist in the Bach/Mendelssohn St Matthew Passion with the OAE, a residency with the Nash Ensemble at Princeton University, Israel in Egypt on tour with Collegium Vocale, Messiah with both the San Francisco and the Detroit Symphony Orchestras, Mozart's C Minor Mass with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zürich, Bach Cantatas with the Bach Collegium Japan, St Matthew Passion with North Carolina Symphony Orchestra and at Symphony Hall, Boston, St John Passion with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Britten's Serenade at The Sage, Gateshead and The Seasons with the Handel & Haydn Society under Sir Roger Norrington at the BBC Proms.

James is a keen exponent of contemporary music and has performed in the world premieres of Knut Nystedt's Apocalypsis Joannis (Oslo Philharmonic), John Tavener's Total Eclipse (Academy of Ancient Music), which was also recorded, and Helen Ottaway's new commission for the Salisbury Festival, The Echoing Green.

As a recitalist, he has appeared with Malcolm Martineau, with Stephen Varcoe and Della Jones at St John's Smith Square, and with John Constable performing Britten Canticles, Quilter To Julia and Tippett The Heart's Assurance for the BBC. In his partnership with the pianist Anna Tilbrook, he has performed Schumann Liederkreis (op 24), Finzi Till Earth Outwears and Poulenc Metamorphoses for BBC Radio 3. James is also partnered regularly by the harpist Alison Nicholls and recently appeared in recital with the Nash Ensemble at the Wigmore Hall, and at the Bury St Edmunds Festival in a programme featuring a new commission by Alec Roth based on Vikram Seth's "All You Who Sleep Tonight".

Peter Harvey arrived at Magdalen College, Oxford to study French and German, but soon afterwards changed course to music, with his love of languages always remaining at the heart of his singing, however. On leaving university he went on to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, during which time he won prizes in a number of international singing competitions, including the Walther Grüner International Lieder Competition, the English Song Award, and the Peter Pears Award. Peter has made well over a hundred recordings in repertoire spanning eight centuries, with an emphasis on music from the High Baroque.

He performed Die Winterreise recently with Roger Vignoles in festivals in Cambridge and Lugo, Spain, and plans to record it with fortepianist Gary Cooper later this year. He has given recitals in festivals in Ottawa, Dinard and Lausanne, and recorded Beethoven settings of Scottish folksongs with Jérôme Hantaï's fortepiano trio (for Naïve). Other recitals include early Lieder with Laurence Cummings, Mozart in Barcelona and a programme of Lute Songs and Lieder in London's Purcell Room with Matthew Wadsworth (lute and 19th century guitar) and Gary Cooper.

With the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir, directed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, he was a key participant in the "Bach Cantata Pilgrimage", recordings of which include the celebrated solo cantata Ich habe genug. More recently he has sung Bach cantatas in the Paris and Leipzig, and he sings Christus in the St John Passion this year in the BBC Proms. A long-standing soloist with Paul McCreesh's Gabrieli Consort, he sings Adam in their recent recording of Haydn's Creation, also appearing in recordings of St Matthew Passion (Bach), Solomon (Handel) and the Monteverdi Vespers (all Deutsche Grammophon) and in concerts including the Châtelet (Paris), Lincoln Center (New York) the Barbican (London). Another long-term collaboration is with The King's Consort (concerts in Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, The Sage, Gateshead, London's Wigmore Hall) in their many recordings, which include the Monteverdi Vespers, music by Bach's predecessors, by Michael Haydn (Requiem and Dies Irae), and most recently, Handel's Festa in Parnasso, directed by Matthew Halls. He has recorded much early Bach with the Purcell Quartet and Emma Kirkby (Chandos), and with London Baroque he recently issued a disc of Rameau's secular cantatas (BIS). He has appeared with the Sixteen (BBC Proms, Spain, Brazil) and sings regularly with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Ivan Fischer and Gustav Leonhardt, recently performing the St John Passion in London, Seoul and Tokyo. Peter sings often with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the St. David's Hall, Cardiff (Creation, Christmas Oratorio) and sang Schubert's Mass in Eb with the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Sir Colin Davis.

A fluent French speaker, Peter Harvey has worked for many continental groups, in particular the Chapelle Royale and Collegium Vocale of Ghent (Philippe Herreweghe), with whom he has made many recordings, including CPE Bach's Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu (Opéra Garnier, Paris). He has sung with Christophe Rousset's Les Talens Lyriques in the Opera at Versailles, whilst with Le Concert Spirituel, directed by Hervé Niquet, he has made countless recordings of the sacred repertoire of the French Baroque, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and King Arthur (Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and Opéra Comique, Paris), and La Cambiale de Matrimonio (Slook) by Rossini. Recordings with Il Seminario Musicale and the French counter-tenor Gérard Lesne include such rarities as Scarlatti's oratorio Sedecia, and Galuppi's engaging Confitebor tibi Domine, and he has performed often with Jean-Claude Malgoire. His long association with the Swiss conductor Michel Corboz, has taken him throughout France, Switzerland and Japan (Mendelssohn's Elijah, Bach's Passions), and produced recordings including two versions of the Requiem by Fauré, the latest of which won a "Choc de l'année" in Le Monde de la Musique.

The Netherlands Bach Society have recorded Mozart's Requiem, Bach's Christmas Oratorio and B minor Mass with Peter (recently at the Tanglewood Festival, USA), and also given the little known St John Passion by Georg Gebel in a televised performance at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, broadcast this Easter. With Ton Koopman he has performed Bach in the Musikverein (Vienna), Théâtre des Champs Elysées (Paris), in Verona and Rome. In Germany he sings with Berlin Radio Symphony Orchstra, La Stagione, Frankfurt (Athalia, Handel Festival, Halle), and with Frieder Bernius' Stuttgart Chamber Choir, with whom he records Messiah later this year.

He will sing Messiah with the Calgary Philharmonic in Canada, where he also works with Tafelmusik and The Theatre of Early Music. He appeared with the Washington Bach Consort in May, and at Easter he had the great honour to sing the St. Matthew Passion with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Bernard Haitink's first performances of the work.

soprano
	Canadian soprano Gillian Keith was the winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Awards in 2000. She is in great demand for performances in recital, oratorio and opera. She has earned praise particularly for her interpretations of Baroque music, and has recorded Handel's Gloria with John Eliot Gardiner on the Philips label. She is equally respected for her song performances and has recorded a disc of early Debussy chansons for the Deux-Elles label. Gillian has appeared in principal roles with English National Opera and Scottish Opera. "And Keith certainly knew how to communicate. Her engagement with Shakespeare's words as they were new-born in Richard Strauss's setting of the Three Ophelia Songs was intense. And she played on her voice as on an instrument, shaping and colouring the melodic line in its every nuance." - Hilary Finch, The Times
alto
	The countertenor Daniel Taylor is now one of the most sought-after countertenors in the world and recognized as "Canada's star countertenor...there is a sense of conviction and honesty that sets him apart from the others" (Globe and Mail). His debut at Glyndebourne in Handel's Theodora was greeted with critical praise and followed on his highly successful operatic debut in Jonathan Miller's production of Handel's Rodelinda. He receives invitations from an ever-widening circle of the world's leading early and contemporary music ensembles, appearing in opera (Metropolitan Opera, Glyndebourne, San Francisco, Rome, Welsh National Opera, Canadian Opera, Opera North and Munich), oratorio (Gabrieli Consort, Monteverdi Choir/English Baroque Soloists, Bach Collegium Japan, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Les Arts Florissants, Berlin Academie fur Alte Musik, Collegium vocale de Ghent, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, King's Consort, Academy of Ancient Music), symphonic works (Dallas, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Toronto, Rotterdam, Montreal), recital (Vienna Konzerthaus; Frick Collection, New York; Forbidden Concert Hall, Beijing; Lufthansa Baroque Festival and Wigmore Hall, London), and film (Podeswa's Five Senses for Fineline-winner at Cannes and also of a Genie). Chamber music also features prominently in his calendar and he regularly joins forces with the Berlin Academie fur Alte Musik, Fretwork and The King's Consort. Daniel Taylor has made more than 60 recordings, which include Bach Cantatas/Monteverdi Choir/Gardiner for Deutche Gramophone and SDG. Renaissance duets with James Bowman (BIS), Handel's Rinaldo with Bartoli /AAM/Hogwood (DECCA),Theodora with LAF/Christie (ERATO), Cantatas "Before Bach" with Collegium Vocale de Ghent/Herrewege (Harmonia Mundi) Sakamoto's pop-opera Life with the Dalai Lama (SONY) and Bach Cantatas with the Bach Collegium Japan (BIS). Upcoming recordings include a CD/DVD at Maitrise Notre-Dame in Paris of the B minor Mass of J. S. Bach with John Nelson/L'ensemble Orchestral de Paris (for EMI) and Handel's Jephtha with Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort for Deutsche Gramophone Archiv.
tenor
	James Gilchrist's concert appearances include Damon in Acis and Galatea at the Proms (Academy of Ancient Music/Paul Goodwin), Bach cantatas with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra in their celebrated Bach Pilgrimage (Sir John Eliot Gardiner/Europe - America), Tippett's The Knot Garden (Sir Andrew Davis/BBC Symphony Orchestra), Monteverdi Vespers and Messiah (The Sixteen/Japan), Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance and Ralph in HMS Pinafore (Scottish Chamber Orchestra), the title role in Judas Maccabeus (The King's Consort), Septimius Theodora (Scottish Chamber Orchestra), Israel in Egypt (St Louis Symphony Orchestra, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Collegium Vocale Gent and SCO), B Minor Mass (Semyon Bychkov/Turin and Santa Caecilia in Rome), Mozart Requiem (Seattle Symphony Orchestra), L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato and a televised performance of Berlioz L'enfance du Christ at the BBC Proms (Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra), Alexander's Feast in Salzburg, Bach's Christmas Oratorio with Ton Koopman and the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zürich, the Evangelist in the Bach/Mendelssohn St Matthew Passion with the OAE, a residency with the Nash Ensemble at Princeton University, Israel in Egypt on tour with Collegium Vocale, Messiah with both the San Francisco and the Detroit Symphony Orchestras, Mozart's C Minor Mass with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zürich, Bach Cantatas with the Bach Collegium Japan, St Matthew Passion with North Carolina Symphony Orchestra and at Symphony Hall, Boston, St John Passion with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Britten's Serenade at The Sage, Gateshead and The Seasons with the Handel & Haydn Society under Sir Roger Norrington at the BBC Proms. James is a keen exponent of contemporary music and has performed in the world premieres of Knut Nystedt's Apocalypsis Joannis (Oslo Philharmonic), John Tavener's Total Eclipse (Academy of Ancient Music), which was also recorded, and Helen Ottaway's new commission for the Salisbury Festival, The Echoing Green. As a recitalist, he has appeared with Malcolm Martineau, with Stephen Varcoe and Della Jones at St John's Smith Square, and with John Constable performing Britten Canticles, Quilter To Julia and Tippett The Heart's Assurance for the BBC. In his partnership with the pianist Anna Tilbrook, he has performed Schumann Liederkreis (op 24), Finzi Till Earth Outwears and Poulenc Metamorphoses for BBC Radio 3. James is also partnered regularly by the harpist Alison Nicholls and recently appeared in recital with the Nash Ensemble at the Wigmore Hall, and at the Bury St Edmunds Festival in a programme featuring a new commission by Alec Roth based on Vikram Seth's "All You Who Sleep Tonight".
	Peter Harvey arrived at Magdalen College, Oxford to study French and German, but soon afterwards changed course to music, with his love of languages always remaining at the heart of his singing, however. On leaving university he went on to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, during which time he won prizes in a number of international singing competitions, including the Walther Grüner International Lieder Competition, the English Song Award, and the Peter Pears Award. Peter has made well over a hundred recordings in repertoire spanning eight centuries, with an emphasis on music from the High Baroque. He performed Die Winterreise recently with Roger Vignoles in festivals in Cambridge and Lugo, Spain, and plans to record it with fortepianist Gary Cooper later this year. He has given recitals in festivals in Ottawa, Dinard and Lausanne, and recorded Beethoven settings of Scottish folksongs with Jérôme Hantaï's fortepiano trio (for Naïve). Other recitals include early Lieder with Laurence Cummings, Mozart in Barcelona and a programme of Lute Songs and Lieder in London's Purcell Room with Matthew Wadsworth (lute and 19th century guitar) and Gary Cooper. With the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir, directed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, he was a key participant in the "Bach Cantata Pilgrimage", recordings of which include the celebrated solo cantata Ich habe genug. More recently he has sung Bach cantatas in the Paris and Leipzig, and he sings Christus in the St John Passion this year in the BBC Proms. A long-standing soloist with Paul McCreesh's Gabrieli Consort, he sings Adam in their recent recording of Haydn's Creation, also appearing in recordings of St Matthew Passion (Bach), Solomon (Handel) and the Monteverdi Vespers (all Deutsche Grammophon) and in concerts including the Châtelet (Paris), Lincoln Center (New York) the Barbican (London). Another long-term collaboration is with The King's Consort (concerts in Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, The Sage, Gateshead, London's Wigmore Hall) in their many recordings, which include the Monteverdi Vespers, music by Bach's predecessors, by Michael Haydn (Requiem and Dies Irae), and most recently, Handel's Festa in Parnasso, directed by Matthew Halls. He has recorded much early Bach with the Purcell Quartet and Emma Kirkby (Chandos), and with London Baroque he recently issued a disc of Rameau's secular cantatas (BIS). He has appeared with the Sixteen (BBC Proms, Spain, Brazil) and sings regularly with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Ivan Fischer and Gustav Leonhardt, recently performing the St John Passion in London, Seoul and Tokyo. Peter sings often with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the St. David's Hall, Cardiff (Creation, Christmas Oratorio) and sang Schubert's Mass in Eb with the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Sir Colin Davis. A fluent French speaker, Peter Harvey has worked for many continental groups, in particular the Chapelle Royale and Collegium Vocale of Ghent (Philippe Herreweghe), with whom he has made many recordings, including CPE Bach's Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu (Opéra Garnier, Paris). He has sung with Christophe Rousset's Les Talens Lyriques in the Opera at Versailles, whilst with Le Concert Spirituel, directed by Hervé Niquet, he has made countless recordings of the sacred repertoire of the French Baroque, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and King Arthur (Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and Opéra Comique, Paris), and La Cambiale de Matrimonio (Slook) by Rossini. Recordings with Il Seminario Musicale and the French counter-tenor Gérard Lesne include such rarities as Scarlatti's oratorio Sedecia, and Galuppi's engaging Confitebor tibi Domine, and he has performed often with Jean-Claude Malgoire. His long association with the Swiss conductor Michel Corboz, has taken him throughout France, Switzerland and Japan (Mendelssohn's Elijah, Bach's Passions), and produced recordings including two versions of the Requiem by Fauré, the latest of which won a "Choc de l'année" in Le Monde de la Musique. The Netherlands Bach Society have recorded Mozart's Requiem, Bach's Christmas Oratorio and B minor Mass with Peter (recently at the Tanglewood Festival, USA), and also given the little known St John Passion by Georg Gebel in a televised performance at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, broadcast this Easter. With Ton Koopman he has performed Bach in the Musikverein (Vienna), Théâtre des Champs Elysées (Paris), in Verona and Rome. In Germany he sings with Berlin Radio Symphony Orchstra, La Stagione, Frankfurt (Athalia, Handel Festival, Halle), and with Frieder Bernius' Stuttgart Chamber Choir, with whom he records Messiah later this year. He will sing Messiah with the Calgary Philharmonic in Canada, where he also works with Tafelmusik and The Theatre of Early Music. He appeared with the Washington Bach Consort in May, and at Easter he had the great honour to sing the St. Matthew Passion with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Bernard Haitink's first performances of the work.