John Potter
Richard Wistreich
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Red Byrd’s distinctive but distinctly unmarketable policy of bringing musicians together for specific projects continues to spawn new combinations of singers and players. The most recent incarnation was in the Vienna Resonanzen festival, as a 17th century band celebrating the world of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. John and Richard were joined once more by lutenist Robin Jeffrey (who played with them at the Loch Shiel Festival last year), Jon Banks (keyboards) and fiddlers Sharon Lindo and Naomi Rogers.
Current programmes include a similar programme celebrating the life of Samuel Pepys. Red Byrd also explore the 16th century, accompanied by Jacob Heringman and Suzanna Pell (lutes and viols) performing ‘a cappella’ vocal music (such as William Byrd’s 4 part mass, and Italian madrigals and frottolas) with voices and instruments.
John & Richard still do ‘real’ a cappella music with their Anglo-German line-up featuring baritone Thomas Bauer (recently billed as 'a supergroup made up of former members of the Hilliard Ensemble, the Consort of Music, Singer Pur and Cantus Köln').
biography
Red Byrd believes that the point of singing the music of the past is to illuminate the present. Its constant members are John Potter and Richard Wistreich, who are joined by other singers and instrumentalists with a strong grounding in early music to explore song old and new.
Its first concert, in the Musikfest Bremen in 1989, ranged from Monteverdi to Frank Martin and John Paul Jones, and in 1990-91 it toured Britain with both early and contemporary programmes. Since then it has visited the USA, Canada, Ireland, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy and Finland.
In 1993 it gave the first performance of Ivan Moody’s Passsion And Resurrection with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir at the Tampere International Choir Festival, Finland. It later recorded the work with Cappella Amsterdam for Hyperion, adding to recordings of music by Monteverdi, Blow and Purcell with the Parley of Instruments on that label; the group has also made several recordings on Virgin Classics and Naxos. In 1998, Red Byrd’s first Léonin recording, Magister Leoninus, was made a disc of the year by the French magazine Diapason and BBC Music Magazine. A second CD of music by Léonin came out in 2001, and the group’s latest release (described as ‘absolutely stunning’ by BBC Music Magazine) is A Scottish Lady Mass – Sacred Music from Medieval St Andrews. Broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 have ranged from music by Landini, Palestrina and Purcell to John Cage, Thea Musgrave, Nigel Osborne and John Surman. Red Byrd contributes a number of tracks to Roger Marsh’s Pierrot Lunaire double CD which was released on NMC in 2007.
Discography
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A Scottish Lady Mass: Sacred Music from Medieval St Andrews Hyperion CDA67299 Buy at Amazon >
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Magister Leoninus: Sacred Music from 12th century Paris Hyperion CDA 66944 |
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Magister Leoninus II Hyperion CDA 67289 (2001)
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Tomkins: Consort Music Naxos 8.550602 (1995)
Gibbons: Songs & Anthems Naxos 8.550603 (1994)
Byrd: Songs & Anthems Naxos 8.550604 (1994) (also Naxos sampler Classic CD 14)
New fashions: Cries & Ballads CRD 3487 (1992)
Elizabethan Christmas anthems Saydisc CD-SAR 46 (1990)
Morley: Joyne Hands Virgin VC 7 91214-2 (1991)
Monteverdi: Balli & dramatic madrigals Hyperion CDA 66475 (1991)
Blow: Awake My Lyre Hyperion CDA 66658 (1993)
Purcell: Hark how the wild musicians sing Hyperion CDA 66750 (1994)
Ivan Moody: Passion & Resurrection Hyperion CDA 66999 (1997)
Songs of Love & Death Factory FAC 336 (1990)
Gibbons: Cries and Fancies Virgin VC 7 90849-2 (1989)