Quartz Festival 2014 – Dame Emma Kirkby
Tuesday 7 October, 7.30pm
Queen’s Hall, Queen’s College, Taunton
Dame Emma Kirkby will be delighting audiences at this year’s Quartz Festival at Queen’s College, Taunton.
In 1999 Emma was voted Artist of the Year by Classic FM Radio listeners and a poll in BBCs Music Magazine placed her in the Top Ten of the world’s greatest sopranos. In November 2000 she received the Order of the British Empire, and in June 2007 was delighted to be included in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for appointment as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Perhaps rather surprisingly, Emma had no early expectations of becoming a professional singer. As a classics student at Oxford and then a schoolteacher she sang for pleasure in choirs and small groups, always feeling most at home in Renaissance and Baroque repertoire. She joined the Taverner Choir in 1971 and in 1973 began her long association with the Consort of Musicke. Emma feels privileged to have been able to build long-term relationships with chamber groups and orchestras, in particular London Baroque, the Freiburger Barockorchester, L’Orfeo (of Linz) and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
To date she has made well over a hundred recordings of all kinds, from sequences of Hildegarde of Bingen to madrigals of the Italian and English Renaissance, cantatas and oratorios of the Baroque, works of Mozart, Haydn and J. C. Bach. Recent recordings include: Handel: Opera Arias and Overtures 2 for Hyperion, Bach wedding cantatas for Decca and Bach Cantatas 82a and 199 for Carus. She has recently recorded an anthology, Classical Kirkby, devised and performed with Anthony Rooley, on the BIS label.
On Tuesday 7 October, as part of the Quartz Festival, Emma will sing a programme entitled The English Muse. Accompanied by Jakob Lindberg on the lute, the evening will feature seventeenth century song showcasing work mostly between John Dowland (1563-1626) and Henry Purcell (1659-1695). In addition to the work from these two ‘giants’ of the age, she will also sing compositions from several fine but rather neglected composers including Johnson, Lawes, Blow, Croft, Humfry and Eccles. It promises to be a magical evening’s entertainment. Tickets are available from The Quartz Festival Box Office on 01823 340829 or online at www.quartzfestival.org.uk