"What an exciting ensemble, music cunningly articulated...every work delivered different colours and emotions"
Yorkshire Post
About usIn 1999, prominent musicologist Peter Holman (director of the Parley of Instruments and Opera Restor'd) joined the School of Music at the University of Leeds as Professor of Historical Musicology. He at once set about the formation of a new regional Baroque orchestra performing on period instruments under his direction.
Since its inception, Leeds Baroque Orchestra has maintained strong links with the University of Leeds and the School of Music. In December 2015 the then Vice Chancellor of the University, Sir Alan Langlands, accepted an invitation to become their Honorary Patron. In 2005 Leeds Baroque Orchestra joined forces with Leeds University Baroque Choir to become simply Leeds Baroque. Since the merger, choral highlights have included the presentation of Biber's massive polychoral Missa Salisburgensis and Schutz's German Requiem. Performances have included a programme of Handel's ceremonial music and a specially commissioned work for Choir and Baroque orchestra by Christopher Roberts In recent years they have also developed links with Leeds Conservatoire. Leeds Baroque is the city’s only ‘period instrument’ choir and orchestra specialising in performances of music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was founded in 2000, and made up of professional, student and talented amateur performers, under the general direction of international authority on the performance of this repertoire, Peter Holman. Leeds Baroque has gained an enviable reputation for performances covering standard works from Monteverdi to Mozart as well as bold explorations of unfamiliar Baroque music. Most of the performers are unpaid, playing in the belief that this specialist, but very accessible, repertoire should be available to all and more widely appreciated. In addition to the core membership, Leeds Baroque welcomes a range of professional singers and instrumentalists for special projects and supports young performers at the outset of their professional careers. 1n 2019/20 Leeds Baroque ran a successful crowd funding project to enable the purchase of the historically appropriate timpani, to add to its collection of period instruments available on loan to students. Leeds Baroque is financed solely from its ticket income, modest grant funding and a small, but supportive ‘Friends’ organisation. We hope you will help us continue to keep Baroque music alive in the region by attending our performances and joining the Friends of Baroque Music in Yorkshire. You can keep in touch via regular newsletters and the Leeds Baroque website www.leedsbaroque.org, follow us on Facebook www.facebook.com/LeedsBaroque and twitter @LeedsBaroque. In 2020 students from Leeds University School of Music compiled a Documentary To celebrate our 20th Anniversary. |
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Peter Holman MBE (Musical Director)
Peter Holman is a conductor known particularly for his interpretations of post-Renaissance English music, but he has also received acclaim for his performances of the works of European masters of the Baroque period. He has recorded extensively for the English label Hyperion and has established parallel careers as a harpsichordist, organist, teacher and music journalist.
He studied at King's College, London with Thurston Dart, and founded the pioneering early music group Ars Nova while a student. He is now director of The Parley of Instruments and the choir Psalmody, is musical director of Leeds Baroque and director of the Suffolk Villages Festival. He has taught at many conservatoires, universities, and summer schools in Britain, Europe, New Zealand and the USA, and was Reader and then Professor of Historical Musicology at Leeds University from 2000, retiring as Emeritus Professor in 2010. He was awarded an MBE in 2015.
Peter is a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and is much in demand as a speaker at learned conferences. He spends much of his time in writing and research, with special interests in the early history of the violin family, in instrumental ensemble music up to about 1700, and in English music from about 1550 to 1850. He is the author of five books: the prize-winning Four and Twenty Fiddlers: The Violin at the English Court 1540- 1690 (Oxford, 1993), Henry Purcell (Oxford, 1994), Dowland: Lachrimae (Cambridge,1999), Life after Death: The Viola da Gamba in Britain from Purcell to Dolmetsch (Woodbridge, 2010), and Before the Baton: Musical Direction and Conducting in Stuart and Georgian Britain (Woodbridge, 2020).
He studied at King's College, London with Thurston Dart, and founded the pioneering early music group Ars Nova while a student. He is now director of The Parley of Instruments and the choir Psalmody, is musical director of Leeds Baroque and director of the Suffolk Villages Festival. He has taught at many conservatoires, universities, and summer schools in Britain, Europe, New Zealand and the USA, and was Reader and then Professor of Historical Musicology at Leeds University from 2000, retiring as Emeritus Professor in 2010. He was awarded an MBE in 2015.
Peter is a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and is much in demand as a speaker at learned conferences. He spends much of his time in writing and research, with special interests in the early history of the violin family, in instrumental ensemble music up to about 1700, and in English music from about 1550 to 1850. He is the author of five books: the prize-winning Four and Twenty Fiddlers: The Violin at the English Court 1540- 1690 (Oxford, 1993), Henry Purcell (Oxford, 1994), Dowland: Lachrimae (Cambridge,1999), Life after Death: The Viola da Gamba in Britain from Purcell to Dolmetsch (Woodbridge, 2010), and Before the Baton: Musical Direction and Conducting in Stuart and Georgian Britain (Woodbridge, 2020).
Bryan White (Chorus Master)
Bryan White took his undergraduate degree at Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX), where he studied choral conducting with Lloyd Pfautsch and Barbara Brinson. He completed a PhD at the University of Wales, Bangor and is currently Senior Lecturer and Director of Research in the School of Music at the University of Leeds.
He is a member of the Purcell Society, for which he has edited Louis Grabu’s opera Albion and Albanius and G. B. Draghi’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day 1687, From harmony, from heav’nly harmony. Bryan is author of Music for St Cecilia’s Day from Purcell to Handel (Boydell, 2019) and in 2019 he curated the Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery exhibition “Gather them in”: The Musical Treasures of W. T. Freemantle. Bryan is the director of the Clothworkers Consort of Leeds, and he works regularly with the University of Leeds School of Music Chorus. He is a longstanding soloist and choral singer with Leeds Baroque, to which he also serves as Chairperson.
He is a member of the Purcell Society, for which he has edited Louis Grabu’s opera Albion and Albanius and G. B. Draghi’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day 1687, From harmony, from heav’nly harmony. Bryan is author of Music for St Cecilia’s Day from Purcell to Handel (Boydell, 2019) and in 2019 he curated the Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery exhibition “Gather them in”: The Musical Treasures of W. T. Freemantle. Bryan is the director of the Clothworkers Consort of Leeds, and he works regularly with the University of Leeds School of Music Chorus. He is a longstanding soloist and choral singer with Leeds Baroque, to which he also serves as Chairperson.
Asuka Sumi (Leader)
Asuka Sumi (leader) is a violinist based in Leeds, specialising in historical performance practice. She holds degrees from the Tokyo National University of Arts and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, where she studied with Lucy van Dael and Sophie Gent. In 2013, Asuka was awarded the Romanus Weichlein Prize at the the Biber Competition in Austria, which led to her solo debut concert at the Vienna Konzerthaus.
Asuka is a forming member of Seconda Pratica (CD Nova Europa), Fons Harmonicus (winner of the Utrecht Fringe Public Prize 2014) and Amsterdam Corelli Collective. With these groups she has been invited to perform in prestigious venues and festivals such as Göttingen Handel Festival, the Sablé and Ambronay festivals in France.
Since moving to Leeds in 2015, she has been immersed in developing the early music scene in northern England and participating in the Cambridge Early Music Summer School. She now organises a concert series, Otley Baroque, which brings in period performers from across the UK to Yorkshire.
Asuka maintains a strong interest in the historical development of violin technique in the seventeenth century and is engaged in continual investigation of the late seicento violin music in Bologna and Modena. As a teacher, Asuka traces her roots to the well-known Sumi family of violin teachers in Tokyo. In 2021 she was appointed leader of Leeds Baroque orchestra.
Asuka is a forming member of Seconda Pratica (CD Nova Europa), Fons Harmonicus (winner of the Utrecht Fringe Public Prize 2014) and Amsterdam Corelli Collective. With these groups she has been invited to perform in prestigious venues and festivals such as Göttingen Handel Festival, the Sablé and Ambronay festivals in France.
Since moving to Leeds in 2015, she has been immersed in developing the early music scene in northern England and participating in the Cambridge Early Music Summer School. She now organises a concert series, Otley Baroque, which brings in period performers from across the UK to Yorkshire.
Asuka maintains a strong interest in the historical development of violin technique in the seventeenth century and is engaged in continual investigation of the late seicento violin music in Bologna and Modena. As a teacher, Asuka traces her roots to the well-known Sumi family of violin teachers in Tokyo. In 2021 she was appointed leader of Leeds Baroque orchestra.