LAURENCE CUMMINGS, harpsichord, conductor

 Laurence Cummings is one of Britain's most exciting and versatile exponents of historical performance both as a conductor and a harpsichord player. He was an organ scholar at Christ Church Oxford where he graduated with first class honours. In 1996 he was appointed Head of Historical Performance at the Royal Academy of Music which has led to both baroque and classical orchestras forming part of the established curriculum. He is also Musical Director of the Tilford Bach Society and a trustee of Handel House London. Since 1999 he has been Music Director of the London Handel Festival where performances have included productions of Deborah, Athalia, Esther, Agrippina, Sorsame, Alexander Balus, Hercules, Samson, Ezio, Riccardo Primo and Tolomeo. He is a regular guest at Casa da Musica in Porto where he conducts Remix Baroque. 

Other opera productions he has conducted include L’Incoronazione di Poppea, Semele and Orfeo for English National Opera, Giulio Cesare for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Vivaldi’s L’Incoronazione di Dario for Garsington Opera, Ariodante and Tolomeo for English Touring Opera, Rodelinda for Opera Theatre Company in the UK, Ireland and New York, Alceste at the Linbury Theatre Covent Garden as part of the London Bach Festival, Caverlieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo, Eccle’s The Judgement of Paris and King Arthur in Croatia, Francisco António de Almeida’s La Spinalba and La Guiditta in Porto, and L’Incoronazione di Poppea and Dardanus at the Royal Academy of Music. He recently made his US debut conducting Orfeo with the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston. 

He regularly conducts the English Concert and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, both in the UK and on tour. He also works with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Ulster Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra in Bridgewater Hall, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Royal Academy of Music Baroque Orchestra - B minor Mass at the London Bach Festival and Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers at the Spitalfields Festival. 

His numerous recordings include the first recording of Handel’s newly discovered Gloria with Emma Kirkby and the Royal Academy of Music on BIS and recital discs of solo harpsichord music (including music by Louis and Francois Couperin) for Naxos. A solo disc of Handel arias with Angelika Kirschlager and the Basel Chamber Orchestra was recently released on Sony BMG. 

Future plans include performances Giulio Cesare for Gothenburg Opera and at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where he also conducts performances of 
Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, staged performances of Messiah at English National Opera and Ottone in Japan. He gives concerts with the Handel and Haydn Society Boston, Remix Baroque at the Casa da Musica, English Concert, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Halle Orchestra and a programme of Britten and Bach with the London Handel Orchestra as part of the Barbican Centre’s “Great Performers” season.

www.alliedartists.co.uk 

ADRIAN BUTTERFIELD, violin, viola, chamber music
is now established as one of the most versatile period-instrument musicians of his generation in the UK and abroad working as a conductor and violinist-director with both modern- and period-instrument orchestras, and as a concerto soloist, chamber musician and teacher. A former chorister of St. Paul’s Cathedral and a graduate of Trinity College Cambridge, he is Musical Director of the Tilford Bach Society and Associate Musical Director of the London Handel Festival and directs ensembles such as the London Handel Orchestra and the Theatre of Early Music, Montreal across Europe and North America. He has appeared on numerous recordings and with most of the period-instrument orchestras in London. Recent solo recordings include CPE Bach sonatas (ATMA), Bach’s Concerto for oboe and violin with John Abberger (Analekta) and Handel’s Violin Sonatas (Somm) which were released in December 2007 to great acclaim. His recording of Leclair's 1st Book of sonatas (Naxos), issued on 3 separate CDs, has just been released. He leads two chamber ensembles in London. The London Handel Players perform regularly at festivals throughout Europe and have made several appearances at the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival. Their recent Handel recordings, of his Op.2 and Op.5 trio sonatas, “Handel at Home” as well as the Violin Sonatas, all for Somm, have received glowing reviews. The Revolutionary Drawing Room specializes in classical and romantic music on period instruments, has recorded quartets by Boccherini and Donizetti for CPO, broadcast repertoire from Telemann to Mendelssohn for the BBC and has performed in North America and across Europe. He has conducted Bach's B minor Mass, Handel’s La Resurrezione, Purcell's Fairy Queen, Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima e Corpo and Rameau’s Pigmalion and recent concerto appearances include Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante with the LHO and rare performances on period instruments of the Beethoven Concerto with the Hanover Band.He works regularly with the Southbank Sinfonia, is Professor of Baroque Violin at the Royal College of Music in London and directs the RCM Baroque Orchestra and teaches on the Aestas Musica Baroque Course in Croatia. He has also been invited to appear with the Croatian Baroque Ensemble, the Ottawa Baroque Consort and in the “Clavecin en Concert” series in Montreal and has recently appeared at the Sweetwater Festival in Owen Sound.
“Adrian Butterfield was the outstanding soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, his exquisite sense of musical line and phrasing matched by a lovely singing tone quality achieved through the minimal use of a gentle vibrato – reflecting contemporary records of the expressive singing quality of the original soloist, Franz Clement.” (Early Music Review, 2006) “Adrian Butterfield plays beautifully throughout and is lent wonderful support by Katherine Sharman and Laurence Cummings. This should be required listening for anyone playing these works.” (Early Music Review, 2008, Handel Violin Sonatas) “... these three outstandingly gifted players are at the peak of their collective form…” (International Record Review, 2008, Handel Violin Sonatas) 

CATHERINE DENLEY, vocal technique
Born in Northamptonshire, contralto Catherine Denley studied at Trinity College of Music, winning prizes there for Lieder and French Song. After two years with the BBC Singers she embarked on a solo career which has taken her all over the world. She has worked with all the major British orchestras and many eminent conductors.
Notable highlights have included the premiere of Europera by John Cage in London, Paris and Berlin; Handel's Messiah with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony; Britten's Spring Symphony for 
Dutch and Polish Radio; Beethoven's 9th Symphony with Sir John Eliot Gardiner in Japan; Mahler's Resurrection Symphony in Odessa and Kiev and his Symphony of a Thousand for TV in Dublin; Bach's St Matthew Passion in the Gewandhaus, Leipzig and Mozart's Requiem in the Salzburg Mozartwoche and at the BBC Proms.
She has also sung Schumann's Scenes from Faust with Sir John Eliot Gardiner in New York and the Proms; Handel's Hercules and La Resurrezione with Marc 
Minkowski in Paris and Lyon; concert tours with Ton Koopman, Trevor Pinnock and Paul McCreesh (including the St Matthew Passion with eight voices) and Bach's Easter Oratorio and Vivaldi Solo Cantatas with the Israel Camerata.
Catherine has well over fifty recordings to her credit: these cover a wide 
range of music, but she is particularly renowned for her Handel discs, some 
of which have won international awards.

Dada Ruza CHOIR
A graduate from the Zagreb Music Academy, Dada teaches conducting and vocal technique at the Varazdin Music School. Her Girls choir has won several international competitions.

LAURA VADJON, violin
 The first Croatian performer on the baroque violin Laura Vadjon is artistic director and concertmaster of the Croatian Baroque Ensemble. From 1999. on, she has extensively appeared with the Ensemble at home and abroad, and gave a large number of first Croatian perforomances of the works by forgotten composers and great baroque masters. 
She has performed and recorded with great success both as a soloist and chamber musician, and is considered a major expert in the early Italian baroque literatureand in the works by Handel and Mozart.
As a musician with a specific and distinctive tone and style, Laura Vadjon is well known for her original and ingenious interpretations which reveal her as a connoiseur of the dramatic and affective features of baroque music. 
She plays on an authentic period instrument, the work of italian 18th century violin maker G.B. Guadagnini.
The winner of numerous awards such as Milka Trnina and Porin, Laura Vadjon has performed in about twenty countries of Europe, Russia, Japan and South America and Cuba. 
She is a professor at the Zagreb Academy of Music, where she teaches the historic interpretation of the 17th and 18th century chamber music.

MARY COLLINS, dance
is an early dance specialist of international repute. She works with dance, theatre and TV companies as an adviser, choreographer, dancer and actress and tours regularly giving master-classes, lecture-recitals and workshops.
Mary revives original choreography and gesture for historical performance. Credits include Purcell’s operas Dioclesian, Dido & Aeneas, The Fairy Queen, The Indian Queen and King Arthur; Blow’s opera Venus & Adonis; Charpentier’s Acteon and Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo; Gluck’s ballet Don Juan; Rebel’s Les Elemens and Rameau’s Pygmalion. She was Movement Director for the Croatian National Theatre’s production of ‘Le s Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Lully/Moliere in Autumn 2009 and Handel’s ‘Il Pastor Fido’ at the London Handel Festival in 2010. Mary teaches at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music in London and, outside London, at Birmingham City University – the Birmingham Conservatoire of Music. Outside the UK she has also given courses for the Norwegian State Ballet School and the Norwegian Music Conservatoire in Norway, Hanyang University and Seoul University in South Korea and The University of Music in Bucharest. In Romania, Mary also inspired and helped establish the Orange Young Musician Award which was created to find and promote young musical talent throughout the country. After four successful years the competition has earned high regard internationally for its standards and integrity. She has made several programmes on various aspects of early dance and its music for TV Cultural. Education work spans every age-group and includes projects for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The National Trust, English Heritage and The British Museum. Her resource book for teachers ‘The Art that All Other Arts Do Approve’ is on the Recommended Reading List in the UK. As well as Aestas Musica, Mary is a faculty member of the Ringve International Summer Course in Norway. 

Joseph Crouch VIOLONCELLO 
 Joseph Crouch began his musical education as a chorister at Westminster Abbey and was later a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge. These choirs gave him exposure not only to "early" vocal music, but also to period instrument orchestras thanks to their many collaborative recordings of Handel Oratorios and Bach Passion settings. The infectious enthusiasm of the instrumentalists drew Joe not only to that repertoire, but to a manner of performing that seemed a world away from the strict discipline of the choir. That, and a reluctant acceptance of his frankly significant vocal limitations, brought Joe to postgraduate studies as a Baroque cellist at The Royal Academy of Music under Jennifer Ward Clarke.

Immediately after graduating, Joe joined the European Union Baroque Orchestra, where he was coached by many of the musicians he had encountered first as a chorister. Joe now combines his positions as principal cellist with The AAM, The English Concert and The Sixteen with a research fellowship at Southampton, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain, investigating the accompaniment of recitative in the classical period and, particularly, the use of the cello as a chordal instrument. The first fruits of this research were heard at The Royal Opera House in The Classical Opera Company’s production of Thomas Arne’s Artaxerxes, of which Richard Morrison wrote in The Times that the recitatives were “superbly accompanied, with prodigious dollops of double-stopping, by the cellist Joseph Crouch”.

Joe is much in demand as a teacher and this year has given masterclasses and lessons at The Royal Academy of Music, The Royal College, Trinity and The Royal Welsh College where he has been invited to inaugurate the first course specifically for continuo playing on the cello. He coaches at Dartington International Summer School and at Aestas Musica, Croatia.

When Joe finds time to practice he is immediately required by his two sons to perform renditions of Bob the Builder, Fireman Sam and Thomas the Tank Engine. Thus he may be the world’s most experienced cello extemporiser on children’s TV themes.



Photo by William Stickney

 JAMIA HANSEN-MURRAY , Dance Assistant 
 American Baroque dancer Jamia Hansen-Murray was trained in classical ballet but her dance career has ranged from opera and musical theater to East European folk dance. She has performed with Seattle Opera, Tacoma Opera, Seattle Symphony and Seattle Baroque Orchestra, and is a frequent soloist at Aestas Musica. Besides her opera experience at Aestas Musica, Jamia has danced in a number of Renaissance and Baroque operas with Early Music Guild (Seattle). She has performed with Seattle Early Dance since 2001. Jamia studied 16th and 18th century dance with Anna Mansbridge (USA), Mary Collins (UK), Catherine Turocy (NY Baroque Dance Company), Cécilia Grácio Moura (Paris), and Ana Yepes (Paris). Her choreography has been seen in Seattle and in Croatia. In the US, she currently teaches Baroque dance and has a growing lecture-demonstration program for schools, along with a costume design business. In 2007, Jamia “graduated” from student to faculty member of Aestas Muscia.