Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610

Amy Carson - Soprano

Born in Bristol, Amy was the youngest of the first girl choristers at Salisbury Cathedral. Since graduating from Trinity College Cambridge, Amy went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music. She has appeared as a soloist in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Versailles, and the Concertgebouw (Monteverdi Choir), Champs Élysées and Wigmore Hall (Early Opera Company), the Barbican (Bach’s Matthew Passion), and St John’s Smith Square (La Nuova Musica and Gabrieli Consort).  She features on recordings with Solomon’s Knot (Sony), London Mozart Players (Convivium), and on Nick Cave’s album Carnage.

Highlights of Amy’s career include: Pamina (in a film of Mozart’s The Magic Flute directed by Kenneth Branagh); Title Role in The Cumnor Affair (Tête à Tête Opera); Musetta in La Boheme (conducted by Nick Collon); The Spirit in Dido and Aeneas (alongside Magdalena Kožená); and Newspaper Seller and Strolling Girl in Death in Venice (The Queen Elizabeth Hall conducted by Richard Hickox).

Amy enjoys performing throughout the South West and has recently established a vocal ensemble The Echoing Air in her home town Bruton. With The Echoing Air, Amy has performed the title roles and co-directed Handel’s Acis and Galatea and Purcell’s Fairy Queen. She recently appeared as Second Woman in Somerset Opera’s production of Dido and Aeneas in Taunton Museum and as soloist in Matthew Coleridge’s Requiem in Gloucester Cathedral.

Kirsty Hopkins - Soprano

Kirsty Hopkins read Music at Manchester University and then continued her post-graduate vocal training at Trinity College of Music where she won the Elizabeth Schumann Lieder Prize.  She now enjoys a versatile career performing all over the world for some of today’s most exciting and renowned conductors and ensembles.

Kirsty has been a proud member of world-leading ensemble The Sixteen for 14 years.  She brings a wealth of knowledge of renaissance and baroque repertoire to her extensive educational work, both with adult choirs and young people.

Recent performances on stage include First Witch in Purcell Dido and Aeneas at Grange Festival; lead roles in the community operas The Moon Hares and Fairy Queen: Three Wishes combining the music of James Redwood and Henry Purcell; and an adaptation of The Magic Flute for Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with performances to young people throughout England; soprano soloist in The Sixteen and Streetwise Opera’s The Passion – a staged version of Bach’s St Matthew Passion receiving rave reviews and broadcast on BBC4; playing Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK, in Charlotte Bray’s opera Entanglement; Betrayal, I Fagiolini’s murderous fusion of renaissance music and contemporary dance; onstage singer for Rambert in their ballet Labyrinth of Love with music by Michael Daugherty and Thomas Tallis at The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe.

Recent concert performances include the European premiere at St John’s Smith Square of Howard Goodall’s Invictus – A Passion; Purcell Indian Queen and Handel Dixit Dominus for Harry Christophers at the Edinburgh Festival and Sydney Opera House; Soprano Evangelist in Arvo Pärt’s Passio for Eric Whitacre conducting Hamburg Symphony Orchestra; Glory of Venice programme for OAE; Bach Lutheran Mass in G Minor for Australian Chamber Orchestra; Handel Israel in Egypt for Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Monteverdi Vespers for OAE throughout the UK and Europe.

Kirsty features on several recordings including Howard Goodall’s Invictus: A Passion, Purcell Indian Queen for The Sixteen and Handel at Vauxhall for London Early Opera. Television performances include appearances on Charles Hazelwood’s The Birth of British Music, The Sixteen’s Sacred Music at Christmas and The Passion on BBC4.

Future plans include more Fairy Queen: Three Wishes around the UK and Mozart Magic Flute and the Bird That Would Be Free in 2025 with OAE at Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Kirsty is a founder member of The Roxy Dots – a girl group bringing Andrews Sisters style to the south of the UK as often as possible.  When not singing, Kirsty is a freelance producer, working with opera companies and ensembles to create vibrant, exciting new productions for tomorrow’s audiences.

Peter Davoren - Tenor

Peter was awarded the Dr Ralph Kohn Scholarship to attend the Royal Academy of Music, London under the tutelage of the renowned tenor Neil Mackie, and Mary Hill. Peter quickly gained a reputation as ‘one to watch for the future’ after his performance as Evangelist in the RAM performance of Bach’s St John Passion, conducted by Edward Higginbottom. Peter’s experience in Oratorio has led to being a regular performer for the Monteverdi Choir with John Elliot Gardiner and made his BBC Proms debut as a soloist in the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, as well as becoming a member of groups such as Solomon’s Knot, The Constellation Choir and Orchestra, La Nuova Musica and Musica Poetica, and becoming a sought-after tenor soloist for baroque music.

Operatically, Peter has performed the roles of Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore); Lacouf and Le Journaliste (Les mamelles des Tiresias); and Florville (Il Signor Bruschino) with the Dutch National Opera Academy; Ferrando (Cosi fan tutte– Opera Lyrica); Alfred (Die Fledermaus); Goro (Madama Butterfly); Song Vendor (Il Tabarro);  Messenger (Aida); Alfred (Die Fledermaus) with Opera Holland Park; Ramon (La Navarraise) and Carlino (Don Bucefalo) with Wexford Opera; and Tito (La clemenza di Tito) with Teatru Manoel, Malta. Future engagements include Elgar Dream of Gerontius, Dvorak Stabat Mater, Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, Carissimi Jephte,  and Verdi Requiem. Peter is also a member of the BBC Singers.

Mark Dobell - Tenor

Originally from Tunbridge Wells in Kent, Mark was a choral scholar at Clare College, Cambridge, where he read Classics. He later studied singing as a postgraduate at the Royal Academy of Music, and was awarded the Clifton Prize for the best final recital.

Mark has worked as a soloist all over the world with renowned conductors including Harry Christophers, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Roger Norrington and Sir James MacMillan. He is known for his intelligent and stylistic interpretation, as well as his versatility, with a repertoire stretching from Machaut to Howard Goodall, and encompassing the many centuries in between.

Career highlights include performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers in Boston and New York for the Handel and Haydn Society; Handel’s Israel In Egypt in Hong Kong for the Hong Kong Sinfonietta; Mozart’s Requiem in Santiago de Compostela and Granada; and Handel’s Messiah at the Palace of Versailles. Recent standout performances include MacMillan’s Stabat Mater in the Sistine Chapel and New York’s Lincoln Center; and the world premiere of MacMillan’s Symphony no.5 – Le Grand Inconnu at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh and the Barbican in London.

2024 featured performances of Janáček’s Otčenaš, Bach’s Lutheran Masses, Haydn’s Creation, Purcell’s The Fairy Queen and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, while in 2025 Mark is looking forward to performances of Bach’s Johannes-Passion, Monteverdi’s Vespers, Handel’s Israel In Egypt and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

When not performing as a soloist, Mark enjoys a busy schedule with many leading British choirs and consorts, such as The Cardinall’s Musick, I Fagiolini, Gallicantus and The Binchois Consort. He is proud to be a long-standing member of The Sixteen, and was a member of the Orlando Consort for over twenty years. He has also been a member of the choir of Westminster Abbey since 2006, where he has taken part in numerous high profile state occasions, most recently the Coronation of Their Majesties the King and Queen.

Jack Comerford - Bass

Jack leads a varied career as a performer, teacher and researcher. He read Music at the University of York and the Royal College of Music, where he graduated with a Double First. Jack studied with Tim Evans-Jones and Stephen Varcoe and held a number of scholarships during his time at the RCM.

Jack has worked regularly with The Monteverdi Choir, OAE, The Sixteen, Gabrieli Consort and Britten Sinfonia. Highlights have included tours of Gluck’s Orfeo and Iphigénie en Tauride with Laurence Cummings in Romania; Bach’s Motets at the BBC Proms with Harry Christophers; the Gramophone award winning Venetian Coronation programme with Paul McCreesh; Bach’s B Minor Mass in Poland with Vaclav Luks; Delius’s Hassan with Jamie Phillips; Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis at the BBC Proms with Sir John Eliot Gardiner; and Handel’s L’Allegro with Dinis Sousa at Carnegie Hall. Jack also sang with the Monteverdi Choir at the Coronation of King Charles III.

Recent solo engagements have included BWV 174 with the London Handel Players; Schutz’s Musikalische Exequien with Sir John Eliot Gardiner; Bach’s B Minor Mass with the Hanover Band; and a european tour of Handel’s Israel in Egypt with Peter Whelan and the Monteverdi Choir. Jack works as a postgraduate researcher and assistant lecturer at the University of Southampton where he is completing his doctorate. He is a recipient of a Handel Institute research award and recently appeared as a guest speaker on BBC 3’s Early Music Show.

Ben Davies - Bass

Ben Davies studied at the Royal Academy of Music. His roles include Sailor (Dido & Aeneas) for William Christie and Deborah Warner at the Vienna Festival, Netherlands Opera and the Opera Comique, Paris; Bass (Matthew Passion) for Streetwise Opera/The Sixteen under Harry Christophers; Ubalde (Armide – Gluck) for the Buxton Festival; Aeneas (Dido & Aeneas) under Sir John Eliot Gardiner at the Opera de Lyon; Judge (Das Wunder der Heliane – Korngold) under Vladimir Jurowski; Guglielmo (Così fan Tutte); Bartolo and Antonio (The Marriage of Figaro); Polyphemus (Acis & Galatea); Bass (The Fairy Queen); Amis (Le Pauvre Matelot – Milhaud); Marcello (La Boheme) in scenes for The Lesley Garrett Show, BBC; and covers of Achilla (Giulio Cesare), Bass (St Matthew Passion), Mr Flint (Billy Budd), Betto di Signa (Gianni Schicchi), Sprecher (Die Zauberflöte) and Krušina (The Bartered Bride) for Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

Recent concert performances include the Monteverdi Vespers, King Arthur, the Brahms Requiem, The Fairy Queen, Messiah, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, the Fauré Requiem and both the St Matthew and St John Passions for Harry Christophers and The Sixteen; Adonis (Venus & Adonis – Blow) at The Wigmore Hall for Matthew Halls and Retrospect Ensemble; Mozart’s C Minor Mass and Purcell’s Ode on St Cecilia’s Day for Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort; and Mozart’s Solemn Vespers, C Minor Mass and Requiem with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir. Other notable concert performances include the British premiere of Hermann Suter’s Le Laudi, the Verdi Requiem in Leeds Town Hall and Bach’s solo cantata Ich habe genug in The Purcell Room.

Howard Ionascu - Conductor

His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts

Celebrating its 42nd birthday in 2024, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts continues in the same spirit as always: aiming to bring the sound of its noble instruments to the 21st century, through pan-European repertoire from 16th- and 17th-century composers, attracting new audiences via recordings, radio, television and (best of the lot!) live performance.

The group’s illustrious-sounding name is taken from Matthew Locke’s Five-part things for His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts that were probably played during the coronation celebrations for King Charles II in 1661. Essentially a recital group comprising three cornetts, three sackbuts and keyboard continuo, HMSC often joins with singers and string players, and is frequently asked to take part in projects with choirs. Recent collaborations include work with Fretwork Viols and the Magdalena Consort, Dunedin Consort, Alamire, Magnificat, the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and Ex Cathedra.

Individual members of HMSC teach at conservatoires and universities throughout the UK and Europe and the group is often invited to give masterclasses and workshops as  part of its educational work.

Activities over the group’s forty-year history have been diverse, ranging from sound and vision recordings for the BBC comedy The Two Ronnies, to appearances in the Salzburg Festival, St. Mark’s, Venice, Sydney Opera House and at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall.

His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts has more than thirty recordings to its credit, including several critically acclaimed discs of Venetian instrumental music from the turn of the 17th century by Giovanni Gabrieli, Giovanni Battista Grillo, and Gioseffo Guami. Programmes of English and Spanish music of the early baroque, Christmas music from around Europe, and the world premiere recording of Martin Harry’s 30th anniversary commission for HMSC At His Majesty’s Pleasure all feature on the group’s own record label, SFZ Records, and are available via the group website.

Monteverdi String Band

The Monteverdi String Band has its origin in the sound and style of the early violin consort, using seventeenth-century equipment to create a unique sound ‘quite unlike any that of any other ensemble I know that plays this music’ ­– Robert Hugill. Much of the band’s programming draws on the elaborate cultural milieu of early seventeenth-century Italy: the literary origins of the madrigal, the life of Galileo, and  the private entertainments of the Venetian nobility have all inspired performances.

The band has collaborated with several opera productions at the Brighton Early Music Festival; the 2017 production of L’Orfeo, co-directed by MSB’s Oliver Webber, was praised for its ‘immediacy and vitality that I found breath-taking’ – The Argus; 2023 saw new collaborations with the Taverner Consort (Monteverdi’s Vespers, Herrenchiemsee) and The City Musick (The Count and the Duke, York Early Music Festival).

The ‘Monteverdi String Band in focus’ series offers smaller projects featuring individual ensemble members: in Con Arte e Maestria, Oliver Webber and Steven Devine explore virtuosic traditions of ornamentation. Released on Resonus Classics in 2021, it was described by Gramophone as ‘an intensely perfumed performance: beguiling then joyful, simple then suave’. They follow this with A Thousand Flexible Ways, for voice (Hannah Ely), violin and lute, touring in 2025.

Summer 2024 saw the release of The Madrigal Reimagined, a collaboration with soprano Hannah Ely and lutenist Toby Carr, which explores the varied incarnations of this poignant and fruitful genre. The disc has already made quite an impression on listeners:

‘This is an extraordinary CD … Webber’s carefully planned programme is not only a treat to listen to; it also tickles the imagination’ – Early Music Review

‘A wonderfully satisfying recital that mixes didacticism with sheer vocal and instrumental dazzle’ – Robert Hugill

‘What an utterly magical evening! … So many people didn’t know the music and felt they’d learned a lot while also being entranced by the whole thing’ – audience feedback, Roman River Festival

This programme is also the inspiration for a new venture working with youth choirs, teaching them about Monteverdi and his stories and including them in performances.

For news, photographs, articles and video, and for booking enquiries, please visit our website: www.monteverdistringband.com