About

British soprano Dame Emma Kirkby (DBE, Queen’s Medal for Music), who has gained recognition world-wide as one of the leading interpreters of Renaissance and Baroque music, performs a special concert in the intimate setting of Cecilia’s Retreat. Kirkby will present a concert of songs for soprano and archlute, in collaboration with bass Alexander Dobson and Canadian lutenist Lucas Harris (Toronto ON).

About Dame Emma Kirkby

Originally, Emma Kirkby had no expectations of becoming a professional singer. As a classics student at Oxford and then a schoolteacher she sang for pleasure in choirs and small groups, always feeling most at home in Renaissance and Baroque repertoire. She joined the Taverner Choir in 1971 and in 1973 began her long association with the Consort of Musicke. Emma took part in the early Decca Florilegium recordings with both the Consort of Musicke and the Academy of Ancient Music, at a time when most college-trained sopranos were not seeking a sound appropriate for early instruments. She therefore had to find her own approach, with enormous help from Jessica Cash in London, and from the directors, fellow singers and instrumentalists with whom she has worked over the years.

Emma feels privileged that she built further long-term relationships with chamber groups and orchestras, in particular London Baroque, Tafelmusik, the Freiburger Barockorchester, L’Orfeo (of Linz), the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Palladian Ensemble, Florilegium, and Theatre of Early Music.

To date, she has made well over a hundred recordings of all kinds, from sequences of Hildegarde of Bingen to madrigals of the Italian and English Renaissance, cantatas and oratorios of the Baroque, and works of Mozart, Haydn and J. C. Bach. Recordings include: “Handel – Opera Arias and Overtures 2” for Hyperion, Bach wedding cantatas and Haydn “Creation” for Decca, Bach Cantatas 82a and 199 for Carus; and many projects for BIS. With London Baroque: Handel motets and arias, cantates of Montéclair, Leçons de Ténèbres of Couperin and DeLalande, Christmas music by Scarlatti, Bach and others; with the Royal Academy Baroque Orchestra the first recording of the newly-rediscovered “Gloria” by Handel; and with the Romantic Chamber group of London, “Chanson d’amour” – songs by the American composer Amy Beach, who died in 1944. “Classical Kirkby”, an anthology devised and performed with Anthony Rooley, also on the BIS label, was released in 1999; Cantatas by Cataldo Amodei, 2004; with Fretwork, consort songs by William Byrd, for Harmonia Mundi USA, 2005; Scarlatti “Stabat Mater” with Daniel Taylor, for ATMA, 2006; “Honey from the Hive”, songs of John Dowland, with Anthony Rooley, for BIS, 2006: and also for BIS two anthologies with Jakob Lindberg: “Musique and Sweet Poetrie” – lute songs from Europe, and “Orpheus in England”, music of Dowland and Purcell. Most recently BIS issued “A Pleasing melancholy”- songs with the viol consort Chelys and Jamie Akers, lute.

Despite all the recording activity, Emma has always preferred live concerts, especially the pleasure of repeating programmes with colleagues; every occasion, every venue and every audience combine to create something new from such wonderful repertoire. All through her career she has enjoyed the chance to coach interested singers in this; for close on forty years she has made regular visits to London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and every summer sees her in a succession of summer schools. She was a part of Dartington International Summer School between 1977 and 2021, and has been for many years at the Sommerakademie in Neuburg-an-der-Donau, Bavaria.

More recently, she has added Oberlin, Graz, Wittenberg, Venice and Wernigerode to her regular list. In many of these places she treasures particularly the chance to share with young performers the joy of playing and singing in beautiful acoustics - those that inspired the original composers to write so idiomatically for voices.

In 1999 Emma was voted Artist of the Year by Classic FM Radio listeners; in November 2000 she received the Order of the British Empire, and in June 2007 was made a Dame Commander of the same order. In June 2008 Emma received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Oxford University, and in 2011 received the Queen’s Medal for Music. BBC Music Magazine, in a survey of critics to find “The greatest sopranos”, placed Emma at number 10. While such things are inevitably parochial, partial, controversial, and outdated as soon as they appear, she is pleased at the recognition this implies for an approach to singing that values ensemble, clarity and stillness alongside the more usual factors of volume and display. Above all, Emma is delighted to see and hear the achievements of the current crop of young singers and players, informed, versatile, courageous, collaborative, and as powerful and expressive in consort as they are in solo roles. In such hands, the future of “historically informed performance” is assured!

About Alexander Dobson British-Canadian baritone Alexander Dobson has been praised for his musical and dramatic artistry on both opera and concert stages. He was lauded for his “gripping embodiment of Wozzeck” (Journal Voir) in a production of the Berg opera with Théâtre du Nouveau Monde and Orchestre Métropolitain, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Other roles of note include the title role in Don Giovanni, the Count/Le Nozze di Figaro and Thomas Betterton/Prince of Players, all with Florentine Opera, and Guglielmo/Così Fan Tutte, Belcoré /L’elisir d’amore and Ned Keene/Peter Grimes, all with L’Opera de Montréal.

Acclaimed for his accomplished blend of stagecraft and vocal ability, Mr. Dobson is particularly in demand for contemporary stagings. His recent performance as “The Master” in Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie’s production of Against Nature was praised for its “clarity and sustained feeling” (The Globe and Mail ) More recently Alex sang in the world premiere of The Night Falls by Ellis Ludwig Leone with Ballet Collective and made the Canadian premiere in Angels Bone with Loose Tea Theatre in Vancouver and Toronto singing the role of Mr. XE. Dobson was also acclaimed as “The Pilot” in Soundstreams’ production of Airline Icarus, a new opera by Brian Current. The recording of Airline Icarus was the winner of the JUNO for Classical Composition of the Year in 2015. The recording of Carlisle Floyd’s Prince of Players, with Florentine Opera and the Milwaukee Symphony, was released in April 2020 on the Reference Recordings label and received two GRAMMY(r) nominations. Alexander made his London debut at the Linbury Theatre with Royal Opera House Covent Garden in the premiere of The Midnight Court by Ana Sokolovic. He also was acclaimed for his appearances in a staged performance of Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony directed by Atom Egoyan at Spoleto Festival USA, and as King Karl in Schubert’s Fierrabras with Toronto’s VOICEBOX:Opera in Concert.

Other opera engagements include Raimbaud/Le Comte Ory for Edmonton Opera, Maximilian/Candide with Calgary Opera; “Guillaume” in the French version of Così fan tutte with Opera Lafayette; Count Almaviva/The Marriage of Figaro with Against the Grain; Marcello/La Bohème with Saskatoon Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria, and on television in BRAVO’s StreetScenes version of the work; Silvio/Pagliacci for L’Opéra de Québec; Mercutio/Roméo et Juliette for L’Opera de Montréal and also for Opera Ontario; Harlequin/Ariadne auf Naxos for Calgary Opera, Sonora/La fanciulla del West with L’Opera de Montreal; and Aeneas/Dido and Aeneas with The Theatre of Early Music. He has sung Escamillo/Carmen in concert with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.

Concert performances of note include Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast with Toronto Symphony and Sir Andrew Davis, Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfayer with Orchestre Métropolitain, Faure Requiem with the Windsor Symphony, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the combined National Arts Centre Orchestra and Orchestre Métropolitain. He has sung Mozart’s Requiem with the Milwaukee Symphony and San Antonio Symphony and Haydn’s Seasons with Cleveland Orchestra. Alexander has sung Handel’s Messiah with Philadelphia Orchestra (Cristian Macelaru, conductor), Calgary Philharmonic (Nicholas McGegan), Kansas City Symphony, Orchestra London, National Arts Centre Orchestra (Paul Goodwin), St. Thomas Church in New York, Edmonton Symphony, Grand Philharmonic Choir, Elmer Isler Singers, Boris Brott Festival, and Spiritus Chamber Choir, Brahms Requiem with Pacific Chorale, Orchestre Metropolitain, Peterborough Symphony, Seattle Symphony and Bach’s St. John Passion with Bach Society of St. Louis. Among his many Canadian engagements this past season were Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Hamilton Philharmonic.

Mr. Dobson is also a dedicated recital artist. Composer Derek Holman wrote the song cycle Daybreak and a Candle End especially for Alexander and the Talisker Players. Mr. Dobson has also performed Dichterliebe with Talisker Players Chamber Music and Coleman Lemieux Dance Company, and Schubert’s Winterreise to great acclaim in Montréal, Victoria, England, Paris, and, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the piano, in Toronto. Alexander has also been heard frequently on CBC Radio Canada in recital and concert.

Alexander graduated from the University of Toronto Opera Division and the Faculty of Music at the University of Western Ontario with Honours. He is also an alumnus of the Music Theatre Program at the Banff Centre, Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, the Steans Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia, and L’Atelier Lyrique de L’Opera de Montreal. Alexander is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes including those from the International Voice Competition of Paris (including the Edward Marshall Association Award for Outstanding Baritone), the Jeunesses Musicales National Competition, the Marilyn Horne Competition (Music Academy of the West), and the Jacqueline Desmarais Competition.

An ardent singer since childhood, Alexander’s solo début was at twelve years old, as a treble soloist in the Canadian premiere of Lloyd Webber’s Requiem under conductor Elmer Iseler.

About Lucas Harris Lucas Harris began his musical life playing equal amounts of jazz and classical guitar as a teen in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. He discovered the lute during his undergraduate studies at Pomona College, where he graduated summa cum laude. He then studied early music in Italy at the Civica scuola di musica di Milano (as a scholar of the Marco Fodella Foundation), then in Germany at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen. After several years in New York City, Lucas moved to Toronto in 2004, becoming a Canadian citizen in 2017. In Toronto he has been the regular lutenist for the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra for more than two decades, and performs with many other ensembles in the USA and Canada including the Smithsonian Chamber Players and the Helicon Foundation (see the “Playing” page for more details). He is also a founding member of the Toronto Continuo Collective, the Vesuvius Ensemble. and the Lute Legends Ensemble.

In 2014 Lucas completed graduate studies in choral conducting at the University of Toronto, the degree having been largely funded by a prestigious Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant not often awarded to performers. Upon graduating, Lucas was chosen as the Artistic Director of the Toronto Chamber Choir (which celebrated its 50th anniversary season in 2018-2019), for which he has developed and conducted over twenty themed concert programs (see this site’s “Conducting” page for a list). He has also directed projects for the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, the Ohio State University Opera Program, Les voix baroques, and the Toronto Consort.

For many years Lucas has been on faculty at the Tafelmusik Summer and Winter Baroque Institutes as well Oberlin Conservatory’s Baroque Performance Institute and has also taught for Vancouver Early Music’s Baroque Vocal Programme, the International Baroque Institute at Longy, and Amherst Early Music. Lucas was praised for his work with Les voix humaines in Montréal: “The revelation of the concert was the Torontonian lutenist Lucas Harris, who weaved a poetic thread through his infinitely subtle interventions. The sweetness and patience of his playing . . . was astonishing.” (Le Devoir). Lucas lives in Toronto with his wife, Baroque violinist Geneviève Gilardeau, and their daughter Daphnée (age 9).