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Artists
Nancy Argenta - Soprano
The Canadian singer counts for many as "the supreme Handel
soprano of our age". She started her musical studies in
British Columbia where she graduated in 1980 from the University
of Western Ontario. Her teachers included Sir Peter Pears, Gérard
Souzay and Vera Rozsa with whom she occasionally still works.
Her repertoire stretches from the 17th century to today and includes
songs, oratorios and Opera. She is a frequent guest of many international
festivals such as those in Aix-en-Provence, Aldeburgh, Bath,
Berlin, Göttingen, New York and Vienna.
Laurie Reviol - Sopran
The Canadian born soprano studied piano and voice in Toronto.
She also completed an artistic study in the field of historic
performance practices at the College of Performing Arts in Frankfurt.
She is a member of the Ensemble Leonarda. Opera engagements have
taken her to Frankfurt, Bayreuth, Schwerin and Quedlinburg and
also to Utrecht (Festival Oude Musziek), Vienna and to America
(Boston Early Music Festival). She has worked with, among others,
Erin Headley, Michael Schneider, Stephen Stubbs und Paul O'Dette.
Laurie Reviol is also a passionate jazz singer.
Michael Chance -
Countertenor (Daniel)
 Michael Chance's carrier began,
as did so many of his colleagues, in King's College, Cambridge,
as countertenor in England's conceivably most famous choir. Today
he is one of the worlds most sought after countertenors, not
only for opera - he sang, for example, the military governor
in the world première of Judith Weir’s “A Night
at the Chinese Opera” - but also for oratorios and songs.
He is a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music, London.
He performs often in Paris, Amsterdam, Stuttgart and Berlin and
has also been in America, Japan and Australia many times. Frieder
Bernius, Frans Brüggen, John Eliot Gardiner and Trevor Pinnock
are just some of the conductors that he works with regularly.
A specialty of Michael Chance's is the song evenings he gives
with the Gamben-Consort Fretwork, Nigel North and, more recently,
Roger Vignoles, in which he sings pieces for voice and lute from
the English Renaissance and also, frequently, works from contemporary,
mostly English composers.
Mark LeBrocq
- Tenor (Belshazzar, Arioch)
 Mark LeBrocq held a choral
scholarship at St Catherine‘s College, Cambridge where he
read English. He won several prizes and awards at the Royal Academy
of Music including the Blyth Buesset Opera Prize, the Royal Academy
of Music Club Prize and the Worshipful Company of Musicians’
Medal. He was formerly a company principal with the English National
Opera. Over the years, the tenor has worked together with many
important directors, including David Alden, David Poutney, Jonathan
Miller, Niklaus Lehnhoff, Graham Vick and David Freeman. He performed
regularly with the Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh. He sang
with Monserat Caballé and Dennis O‘Neill in Verdi
Opera Galas in Bath, the Mozart and the Verdi Requiems in the
Barbican Centre, London and the Mozart Requiem with The English
Concert under Trevor Pinnock in Salzburg.
Stephen
Varcoe ~ Bass
The English bass-baritone, Stephen (Chistopher) Varcoe, studied
at Cambridge, and during his school years there he sang in the
King’s College Choir. In 1977 he won a scholarship from
the Gulbenkian Foundation. Stephen Varcoe has established a reputation
as one of Britain's most versatile baritones, and has sung in
opera, concerts and recitals covering a wide range of repertoire
in Europe, the USA and the Far East. He is often to be heard
performing Bach Cantatas, Songs from Schubert, and Victorian
Ballads. His musical repertoire is quite extensive and reaches
into modern music. An area of emphasis, however, is compositions
from the time of Bach and Händel. Stephen has always been
fascinated by the relationship between words and music, and the
role of the singer in communicating meaning to an audience and
is currently writing a book on singing in English. He is in constant
demand for Master Classes as a specialist in German lieder and
English songs, having taught at many UK Universities and Colleges.
Stephen Varcoe's operatic appearances include Haydn's L'Infedelta
Delusa in Antwerp, Debussy's Fall of The House of Usher in Lisbon
and London, John Tavener's opera Mary Of Egypt for the Aldeburgh
Festival and Plutone in Peri's Euridice for the Drottningholm
Festival, Sweden. His repertoire also includes Death in Holst's
Savitr, Demetrius in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream and
Salieri in Rimsky Korsakov's Mozart & Salieri.
Stephen Varcoe has appeared with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,
the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra,
the Ulster Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the St
Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio
France, New Zealand Chamber Orchestra, the Hanover Band, at the
Gulbenkian Foundation in Portugal, at the National Arts Centre
Orchestra, Ottawa, with the King’s Consort, at the Festival
Cervantino in Mexico, and with conductors Frans Brüggen,
Daniel, John Eliot Gardiner, Richard Hickox, Lindberg, Charles
Mackerras, Malgoire, Minkowski, Östman, Trevor Pinnock,
Joshua Rifkin, Roszdevensky and Tortelier. Recent engagements
have included Goehr's Sonata About Jerusalem with Knussen and
the Schoenberg Ensemble, Bach's St Matthew Passion (BWV 244)
with Trevor Pinnock in Ottawa, Bach Cantatas with the Bach Sonnerie
at the Spitalfields Festival, Vaughan-Williams' Sir John In Love
with Richard Hickox and the Northern Sinfonia, Webern Cantata
II with Simon Joly and The BBC Symphony Orchestra, Schubert's
Mass in E flat with Roger Norrington and the Vienna Symphony
Orchestra and Messiah with Steuart Bedford the City of London
Sinfonia.
Stephen Varcoe appears regularly in recital in England and abroad
and is heard frequently in recital with the Songmakers' Almanac
and on BBC Radio 3. Recent recital work has included a programme
of Finzi and Somervell with Iain Burnside, Schubert's Winterreise
with Eugene Asti, Brahms, Schumann and Wolf at the Wigmore Hall
with Graham Johnson, Grainger with Penelope Thwaites for BBC
Radio 3 and Schubert and with Graham Johnson at the Bury St Edmund's
Festival.
Stephen Varcoe has made over 100 recordings including Purcell,
Händel and Bach with Pinnock, John Eliot Gardiner, Richard
Hickox and Sigiswald Kuijken, Mozart with Neville Marriner, Fauré
with Rutter, Holst with Richard Hickox, Richard Strauss with
Roger Norrington, recitals of Finzi and Parry with Clifford Benson
and French songs with Graham Johnson, with whom he recorded Volume
2 in the Hyperion Schubert edition. He has also recorded Haydn
and Grainger for Chandos with Richard Hickox and the City of
London Sinfonia, Schoenberg with Robert Craft and The 20th Century
Classics Ensemble and Stravinsky with Robert Craft and The Orchestra
of St. Luke's.
Steffen
Balbach - Bass
studied church music at the College of Church Music, Esslingen.
He was full time cantor of the ev. Christuskirche in Donaueschingen.
He completed his vocal studies at the Freiburg Conservatory with
the highest possible point count. Since then, he has sung the
bass and baritone parts of countless oratorios, cantatas and
masses. In 2001 he reached the final round of the renowned international
vocal competition Belvedere in Vienna. Stefan Balbach works with
the choir of Radio Bavaria and the Gewandhaus-Kammerchor, Leipzig.
He has been a member of the National Opera, Stuttgart since 2002.
Hanoverian Court Orchestra (Hannoversche Hofkapelle)
The Hanoverian Court Orchestra maintains the tradition of
the historic court orchestras and performs with both chamber
and symphonic instrumentation. The fact that its members also
play in other European Baroque formations, helps forge the sound
of the ensemble. The repertoire of the Hanoverian Court Orchestra
not only incorporates Baroque music in all its forms, but also
Romantic pieces and Classical works, especially Mozart's operas
and the Romantic genre. The continual involvement with the music
of the 17th and 18th century has allowed each of the Court Orchestra’s
musicians to become a master of his instrument. From this emerges
the expressive and elegant playing that allows the Hanoverian
Court Orchestra to maintain its prominent position.
Maulbronn Chamber Choir
The Maulbronn Chamber Choir was founded by its director, Jürgen
Budday, in 1983 and is one of the top choirs in Germany today.
In addition to learning a baroque oratorio, the ensemble compiles
a sacred and secular a-cappella programme every year, its focal
point being 19th and 20th century literature. First prize at
the Baden Württemberg Choir Competition in 1989 and 1997,
second prize at the Third German Choir Competition in Stuttgart
in 1990, and a victory at the Fifth German Choir Competition
in Regensburg in 1998 document the chamber choir's extraordinary
musical standard. The Maulbronn Chamber Choir has received, among
others, invitations to the Ettlingen Palace Festival, the chamber
music series of the Dresden Philharmonic, the cloister concerts
at the Walkenried convent, the First International Festival of
Sacred Music in Rottenburg, and the European Music Festival in
Passau. The choir has also made a name for itself internationally.
The 1983 debut tour through the USA with concerts in, among others,
New York and Indianapolis, and the participation in the Festival
of Music in New Harmony, Indiana, as well as concert tours through
numerous European countries, Israel, Argentina (1993 and 1997),
South Africa, and Namibia (2001) were all greeted with similar
enthusiasm by the public and critics alike. The third tour through
South America followed in autumn 2003 with concerts in Argentina
and Uruguay.
Jürgen Budday (Conductor)
 Jürgen Budday is director of church
music and artistic director of the concert series at the monastery
of Maulbronn, of the cantor choir and of the Maulbronn Chamber
Choir. He studied music education, church music and musicology
at the Academy of Music in Stuttgart and, since 1979, has taught
at the Evangelic Theology Seminar in Maulbronn. For his teaching
and artistic activity, he has received many awards, including
the Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande (German Cross of Merit) and
the Bruno-Frey Prize from the State Academy, Ochsenhausen. Since
2002, Jürgen Budday has also held the chair of the choral
committee of the German Music Council. Several concert recordings
have been made under his artistic direction. They have often
received international recognition and high praise from critics.
These have included the Handel oratorios Jephtha, Samson, Judas
Maccabaeus and Saul with Emma Kirkby, Michael Chance, Nancy Argenta
and Stephen Varcoe.
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