Gothic Voices: Biographies

The Performers

Catherine King.............................mezzo-soprano (not pictured)
Rogers Covey-Crump..................tenor
Julian Podger...............................tenor
Leigh Nixon.................................tenor

CHRISTOPHER PAGE - founder and director of Gothic Voices,

has written numerous articles on medieval music, instruments and performance practice, and three books: Voices and Instruments of the Middle Ages (1987), The Owl and the Nightingale: Musical Life and Ideas in France 1100-1300 (1989), and The Summa Musice: A Thirteenth Century Manual for Singers (1991). In 1990 he was awarded the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association for outstanding services to musicology. Much in demand as a lecturer at home and abroad, from 1981 to 1985 he was a Lecturer in Old and Middle English at New College, Oxford, and is now University Lecturer in Middle English Literature at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College.

CATHERINE KING, mezzo soprano

Brought up in Worcestershire, Catherine King won a scholarship to Trinity College Cambridge and went on to study at the Guildhall School of Music in London and later with Josephine Veesey. She now appears regularly as a soloist in major British and European festivals. Recent appearances include Prague, Hamburg, Paris, the United States, live BBC broadcasts tom the Wigmore Hall and St John's, Smith Square, and oratorio performances throughout the country.

Contemporary performances include new works in London Spitalfields Festival with Sing Circle, Tippett's 'Crown of The Year' with the Nash Ensemble, as well as premieres of specially commissioned songs performed in the USA , and on radio and CD.

Recordings include recitals for Radio Three and on CD with her duo partner lutenist Jacob Heringman, pianist Wayne Marshall, and with leading early music ensembles, including GothicVoices, Fretwork, London Baroque, the New London Consort, the Consort of Musicke and the Taverner Consort.

ROGERS COVEY-CRUMP, tenor

Rogers was a chorister at New College, Oxford and later a lay-clerk at St Alban's Cathedral. He graduated from London University as Bachelor of Music.

Early work included concert and recording engagements with vocal consorts and ensembles spcecialising in early and contemporary repertoire, in particular with the late David Munrow's Early Music Consort of London, the Consort of Musicke, the Medieval Ensemble of London, the Landini and Deller Consorts, Singcircle and the Taverner Consort. Currently he works with Gothic Voices -of which group he is a founding member -but predominantly as a member of the four-voice Hilliard Ensemble.

As a solo artist at concert venues around Britain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Finland, Canada and the USA, he is in paticular demand as Evangelist in the Passions of J S Bach, and as a high tenor in the Odes and Church music of Henry Purcell. More generally his repertoire covers Iute-song, Baroque and early Classical pieces.

Rogers' recent engagements have included Bach Cantatas with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, an appearance at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester singing Bach's Mass ln B minor, performances of the Evangelist roles in Bach's Passions in Eton College Chapel, King's College, Cambridge and the Symphony Hall, Birmingham, and Messiah with the London Festival Orchestra in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.

His many recordings include Bach's B mlnor Mass, the role of Evangelist and the St. John Passion arias with Andrew Parrott for EMI; works by Bach, Handel and Haydn with Simon Preston and with Christopher Hogwood for Decca; Mozart with King's for Argo and Decca, and Purcell with John Eliot Gardiner for Erato. Major recent projects have been solo songs, the Odes and the Church music of Purcell with the King's Consort for Hyperion.

Other recent recordings are lute-songs with Paul O'Dette for Hyperion (Ancient Airs and Dances), Dowlands' Book One with Jakob Lindberg for the Swedish label BIS and most recently an album of 17th century English songs with the Folger Consort of Washington DC.

His interest in the nature of vocal tuning and historical temperaments has resulted in invitations to contribute to two major collections of essays on very diverse aspects of music and performance. Both compilations were published in 1992.

JULIAN PODGER, tenor

was educated in Kassel, Germany, where upon leaving school, he first established himself as a solo singer and conductor. In 1987 he took up a Choral Award to read Music at Trinity College, Cambridge. There, in addition to his many commitments as a solo singer, he was instrumental in the development of the early music scene, and concerts under his direction gained widespread recognition, aided by the use of historical performance practice. As part of his post-graduate studies he carried out research into the performance practice of Tudor church music, and he continues to direct performances of mainly “early” music with his vocal ensemble, Trinity Baroque, experimenting with both historical and new approaches.

As an oratorio soloist he is now much in demand in England and abroad, particularly Germany. He has recorded the arias of Bach’s St. John Passion with The Scholars Baroque Ensemble and regularly performs as evangelist, high points being a tour to the Canary Islands with Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and a performance of the same in St. John’s, Smith Square, London. He has appeared regularly as a soloist for Paul McCreesh, Christopher Hogwood, John Eliot Gardiner and with Musica Antiqua Köln under Reinhard Goebel and has recently been invited to sing for Andrew Parrott in a forthcoming recording. Also an ensemble singer, he is a member of one of the word’s leading medieval ensembles, Gothic Voices, under Christopher Page, and a regular member of The Gabrieli Consort, London Baroque and The Tallis Scholars.

He was recently appointed Choral Conductor for Florilegium, and has since directed their choir and orchestra in various baroque works, including Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in St. Pancras Church, London, and the Canary Islands in which he also sang the tenor solos, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the Sablé-sur-Sarthe festival and most recently Handel’s Israel in Egypt at the Noirlac Festival, France. Future conducting projects include further performances of Messiah, Telemann’s Brockes Passion and Purcell’s King Arthur.

LEIGH NIXON, tenor

Having begun his musical training as a Chorister at Westminster Abbey, Leigh Nixon subsequently won a Choral Scholarship at King's College, Cambridge, where he studied music under David Willcocks. While still a Choral Scholar, he began his solo career with concerts and recordings in Holland. After a further year's study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, he started to work with most of the London professional choirs and consorts, rapidly making a name for himself in the field of Early Music. He has performed and recorded extensively with the Hilliard Ensemble, of which he was a member for seven years, with the Deller Consort, and with David Munrow's Early Music Consort. Since 1984 he has been a member of the internationally acclaimed medieval music group Gothic Voices. Leigh Nixon is a Lay Vicar of Westminster Abbey.