The Saraband Consort brings together a core of dynamic musicians, committed to bringing music alive through period instrument performance.
This UK-based ensemble comprises a core of eight musicians who share in a collective musical consciousness that has developed out of a diversity of cultural backgrounds. Saraband Consort reflects a wealth of experience gathered from the instrumentalists’ respective portfolio careers as young artists, and from individual conservatoire training gained in the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Poland and Norway, as well as through studies at Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester Universities. Central to this group is the desire for musical expression without compromise.
At the heart of the ensemble’s sound world is the unusual employment of two individual viola voices, juxtaposed with two violins. This concept was inspired by the rich textures favoured by composers of the seventeenth century, such as Muffat and Biber, making this repertoire a particular staple for Saraband Consort. However, this style of counterpoint has also planted the seed for a number of arrangements of four and five part works by J.S. Bach, conceived originally for organ, which have become a defining part of the ensemble’s programming. In addition to violin and viola parts, the other core instruments are cello, bass, harpsichord and theorbo.
The members of The Saraband Consort are busy freelance musicians in their own right, playing in ensembles such as The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, The English Concert, The Sixteen, The Gabrieli Consort, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, The King’s Consort and The Academy of Ancient Music. The Consort’s instrumentation offers flexibility in expanding to accommodate projects demanding larger forces, making music of the high Baroque and Classical era another facet of the ensemble’s work. This is reflected by the fact that the name ‘Saraband Consort’ was first coined in 1998 by Benjamin Bayl for programmes predominantly constructed around vocal music. Past performances in augmented form have included Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Handel’s Dixit Dominus.
The Saraband Consort were finalists in the York Early Music Festival's International Young Artists’ Competition, and were subsequently invited to return both for their own concert and to accompany, live on Radio 3, the Choir of New College Oxford. Other recent appearances include the Aste Nagusia Festival in Bilbao, a tour of the Basque country, a recital for London City Music Society, and performances with Jesus College Choir Cambridge, Harlow Chorus, the Choir of St.Bride's Fleet Street and Leicestershire Chorale, performing oratorios of Bach and Handel.
Future engagements include a concert in Bromsgrove Festival, a recital in Banqueting House, Whitehall, with James Bowman, and their debut in Austria at the Trigonale Festival, 2010.