THE HILLIARD ENSEMBLE

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Hilliard Ensemble

The Hilliard Ensemble is a British male vocal quartet devoted to the performance of early music. Founded in 1973 or 1974,[1] the group is named after the Elizabethan miniaturist painter Nicholas Hilliard.

Although most of its work focuses on music of the Medieval and Renaissance periods, the Hilliard Ensemble also performs contemporary music, working frequently with the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and including in its concerts works by John Cage, Gavin Bryars, Giya Kancheli, and Heinz Holliger.

The group was originally founded by Paul Hillier, Paul Elliott, and David James, although the membership was flexible until Hillier left in the late 1980s. Since 1990 the core members have been David James, Rogers Covey-Crump, John Potter, and Gordon Jones, with one change: in 1998 John Potter was replaced by Steven Harrold.

The Hilliard Ensemble has recorded extensively for the ECM label. In 1993, when popular interest in Gregorian chant was at its height, the ensemble released the CD Officium, an unprecedented collaboration with the Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek. The disc became one of ECM's biggest-selling releases of all time, reaching the pop charts in several European countries. (Officium's sequel, the 2-CD set Mnemosyne, followed in 1999.)

Their recordings have also been included in Craig Wright's Listening to Music textbook for music students and music appreciation.

The Hilliard Ensemble's most recent projects include Heiner Goebbels' I went to the house but did not enter, an avant-garde staged concert which had its premiere at the 2008 Edinburgh International Festival and has taken the Ensemble to prestigious venues across Europe and USA.

For the second half of 2009 are planned four premieres of new works: Fabio Vacchi's Memoria Italiana, Steffen Schleiermacher's Die Beschwörung der Trunkenen Oase, Wolfgang Rihm's Et Lux and a piece by Simon Bainbridge.

DAVID JAMES countertenor
ROGERS COVEY-CRUMP tenor
STEVEN HARROLD tenor
GORDON JONES baritone

The Hilliard Ensemble is considered to be one of the world's finest vocal chamber groups, and is probably unrivalled for its formidable reputation in the fields of both early and new music. Its distinctive style and highly developed musicianship engage the listener as much in medieval and renaissance repertoire as in works specially written for the group by living composers.

The ensemble's performing schedule is busy and varied, amounting to some hundred concerts a year. Its substantial following in Europe, particularly in Mediterranean and central European countries, is augmented by regular visits to Japan, the USA and Canada.

The group’s reputation as an early music ensemble dates from the 1980s and its series of highly successful records for EMI (many of which are now re-released on Virgin), but from the start the group has paid equal attention to new music. Their 1988 recording of Arvo Pärt’s Passio began a fruitful relationship with both Pärt and the Munich-based record company ECM. This continued with their recording of Pärt’s Litany, which was released in August ‘96. The group has recently commissioned other composers from the Baltic States, including Veljo Tormis and Erkki-Sven Tüür, adding to a rich repertoire of new music written for the Ensemble by Gavin Bryars, Heinz Holliger, John Casken, James MacMillan, Elena Firsova and others. The group’s 1994 composition competition produced over one hundred pieces, many of which have found their way into Hilliard programmes. At its regular summer schools the group provides for a composer-in-residence; past holders of this post have included Ivan Moody, Piers Hellawell, Barry Guy and Gavin Bryars. Many of these composers are represented on the ECM double album A Hilliard Songbook.

In 1994, Officium was released, “one of the biggest crossover hits of the ‘90s”. This was the first of the group’s collaborations with the Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek. 1997 saw the release of the Canadian film Lilies, for which the group provided the soundtrack, and a renewal of their collaboration with Garbarek with the release of Mnemosyne which they have toured throughout the world. The Hilliard Ensemble also commemorated the 500th anniversary of the death of Ockeghem (ca.1410-1497) with special tribute programmes and through the launch of their own mail-order record label, hilliard LIVE. The first issue of hilliard LIVE, Perotin and the Ars Antiqua, was released in ‘96, No 2, For Ockeghem, in 1997, and No 3 Antoine Brumel, and No 4 Dufay were released during 1998. These CDs are now available in the Coro label.

Concerts with major orchestras have included a performance of Pärt’s Litany with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and a series with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1999, they premiered Miroirs des Temps by Unsuk Chin, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Kent Nagano. In the same year, James MacMillan’s Quickening, commissioned jointly by the BBC and the Philadelphia Orchestra, was premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sir Andrew Davis at the BBC Proms.

Autumn 2001 saw the successful release of another ECM collaboration, Morimur with the German Baroque violinist Christoph Poppen and soprano Monika Mauch. Based on the research of Prof. Helga Thoene, it is a unique interweaving of Bach’s Partita in D minor for solo violin with a selection of his Chorale verses crowned by the epic Ciaconna, in which instrumentalist and vocalists are united.

The group continues in its quest to forge relationships with living composers. 2002 opened with the world première of Piers Hellawell’s The Pear Tree of Nicostratus in Finland, with the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra; also in this year they gave the US première of MacMillan’s Quickening with the Philadelphia Orchestra. In September 2003 they performed the world premiere performance of the 3rd Symphony of Stephen Hartke with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Lorin Maazel.

In 04 they celebrated their 30th year with a series of concerts at the Wigmore Hall, appearances at the Holland Festival in a new opera, Gesualdo Considered as a Murderer by Luca Francesconi; performances of Quickening in Liverpool and at the Edinburgh Festival. Recent recordings for ECM New Series include a disc of motets by Machaut, a disc of Nicolas Gombert and the complete Bach Motets sung with one voice to a part.

In 2007 the group collaborated with the Munich Chamber Orchestra with a new work by Erkki-Sven Tüür,. Also in this year the group joined forces with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra to premiere Nunc Dimittis by the Russian composer Alexander Raskatov and later recorded it for ECM.

Work began back in May 2007 on a project with the German composer Heiner Goebbels in a production by the Théâtre Vidy, Lausanne: it will premiere at the Edinburgh Festival in 08 and go on to tour Europe and the US in 2008/09. In 2009/10 they will work with the Arditti Quartet and the Chilingirian String Quartet amongst others.

In addition to their many collaborations, the group continues to give a cappella concerts of old and new music throughout the world.

WP:

The Hilliard Ensemble est un quatuor vocal anglais dédié à l'interprétation de la musique ancienne et contemporaine fondé en 1973 par Paul Hillier, Paul Elliott, et David James. Le nom du quatuor est un hommage à Nicholas Hilliard, un peintre miniaturiste de l'époque élisabéthaine.

Composition de l'ensemble

La composition de l'ensemble a toujours été fluctuante. Paul Hillier quitte le groupe à la fin des années 1980 pour fonder le Theatre of Voices. Les membres actuels du groupe sont David James (contre-ténor), Rogers Covey-Crump (ténor), Steven Harrold (ténor) et Gordon Jones (baryton). L'ensemble s'adjoint le cas échéant des chanteurs supplémentaires pour les polyphonies de plus de quatre voix.

Répertoire

Bien que son répertoire soit pour la plupart constitué de musique médiévale et de la Renaissance, l'ensemble chante également de la musique contemporaine, ayant notamment enregistré deux longues compositions d'Arvo Pärt, Passio et Litany, pour le label ECM. Il interprète des œuvres de Gavin Bryars, Veljo Tormis, John Cage, Erkki-Sven Tüür et Ielena Firsova, entre autres, lors de ses nombreux concerts.

Officium, un album sorti en 1993 en collaboration avec le saxophoniste norvégien Jan Garbarek, est rapidement devenu l'un des disques les plus vendus de l'histoire du catalogue ECM[1].