Dunedin Consort

The Dunedin Consort is a baroque ensemble based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It has won major recording awards, and in 2010 was ranked 11th among the world’s choirs by an international jury assembled by Gramophone (magazine), It was founded in 1995 by Susan Hamilton and Ben Parry (musician), and named after Edinburgh’s Din Eidyn castle. In 2003, after Parry’s departure, the group chose John Butt (musician) as its conductor. Under Butt’s musical direction, it has become known for performing and recording Baroque vocal music. Butt shared the title of co-artistic director of the Dunedin Consort until August, 2012, when his title was changed to Music Director.

The Dunedin Consort has commissioned and performed works by composers including Sally Beamish, Harvey Brough, Corrina Hewat, Peter Nelson, William Sweeney (composer), and Errollyn Wallen, as well as a number of others who contributed to “The People’s Mass” (see Recordings and Awards). The group broadcasts frequently on the BBC and performs at many locations in the United Kingdom. It appears regularly at the Lammermuir Festival; it has also appeared at the Edinburgh International Festival and at music festivals in Canada, England (including the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music), France (La Chaise-Dieu Festival), Germany (Thuringer Bachwoche and Handel Festival, Halle), Ireland, Israel, Italy, and Spain.

Recordings and Awards

The consort has made 14 recordings; nine are on Linn Records. Other labels have included Delphian for “…in Chains of Gold” and “The People’s Mass,” Tob Records for "Silhouettes," and Crimson Productions for “A Celtic Christmas":

• 1997: “A Celtic Christmas” (with William Jackson and the Scottish Orchestra of Music; Mairi MacInnes and Mae McKenna also contributed tracks)

• 2000: In the Beginning, music of Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland; the Consort is directed by Ben Parry

• 2000: “The Dunedin Consort Live” (self-published; out of print)

• 2003: … in Chains of Gold, music of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd (without conductor)

• 2003: “The People’s Mass” – a composite of texts from the Order of Mass and from English-language poetry set to music by Malcolm Lindsey, Christine McCombe, Tommy Fowler, John Gormley, and Anthea Haddow, as well as Gregorian chant; the Consort is accompanied by harp. The Consort commissioned the work and performed it in communities around Scotland.

• 2004: "Silhouettes" - a work composed for the consort by Corrina Hewat in 2003 based on poetry of E. E. Cummings and Judith Jardine; released on Tob Records.

• 2006: Handel's The Messiah. This was the first recording of a reconstruction of the work in its first performance, which took place in Dublin in 1742. The recording won the 2007 Gramophone Award for Best Baroque Vocal Recording and a 2008 Midem Award. This was the first Dunedin recording led by John Butt, who has conducted all the group’s subsequent recordings except “The Wode Collection,” which is performed without conductor.

• 2008: J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion. This was the first recording of Bach’s final performing version of the work, also dated 1742. It was the second commercial recording of the work to use the one-voice-per-part vocal scoring proposed by Joshua Rifkin.

• 2008: Handel’s Acis and Galatea (Handel) in the original performing version of 1718. The recording was nominated for a Gramophone Award.

• 2010: J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor. This is the first recording to use the 2006 critical edition by Joshua Rifkin, which follows Bach's final version of the score from 1748-50 exclusively from beginning to end. (Other editions have included elements from Bach’s 1733 version of the Kyrie and Gloria, and some edits made after his death by his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach). The performance uses one or two singers per vocal part in the choruses.

• 2011: “The Wode Collection” (a collaboration with the viola da gamba consort Fretwork, performed without conductor), featuring 16th-century music collected by the contemporaneous Scottish monk Thomas Wode.

• 2012: Handel's Esther (Handel) in the first reconstructable version, from 1720.

• 2013: J.S. Bach's St. John Passion, in a liturgical reconstruction loosely based on a Good Friday Vespers service in Leipzig. The group uses an edition of the St. John Passion that incorporates revisions Bach made for a cancelled 1739 performance and for the work’s final performances in Leipzig in 1749. The recording was completed November 2, 2012, according to the group’s Twitter feed. In March, 2013, the disc was named “Record of the Month” by Gramophone (magazine) and “Recording of the Month” by BBC Music Magazine.

• To be released in September, 2013 (recorded in May, 2012): J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, featuring the Dunedin Players directed by John Butt.

Media

• [1] Dunedin Consort YouTube page with rehearsal or performance clips and discussion by John Butt (musician) of Bach's St. John Passion, Mass in B minor, Sinfonia from BWV 174, Handel's Esther, et al.