Andrew Lawrence-King
Encyclopedia
Andrew Lawrence-King is a harpist and early music
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...

 specialist, and is currently the director of The Harp Consort
The Harp Consort
The Harp Consort is an international Early Music ensemble directed by Andrew Lawrence-King, specialising in Baroque Opera, early dance-music, and historical World Music....

. He also is also a conductor who directs from one of several continuo instruments, including harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

, organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

, harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

 & psaltery
Psaltery
A psaltery is a stringed musical instrument of the harp or the zither family. The psaltery of Ancient Greece dates from at least 2800 BC, when it was a harp-like instrument...

.

Early career

His musical career began as Head Chorister at the Cathedral and Parish Church of St Peter Port
St Peter Port
Saint Peter Port is the capital of Guernsey as well as the main port. The population in 2001 was 16,488. In Guernésiais and in French, historically the official language of Guernsey, the name of the town and its surrounding parish is St Pierre Port. The "port" distinguishes this parish from...

 Guernsey, whence he won an Organ Scholarship to Selwyn College, Cambridge
Selwyn College, Cambridge
Selwyn College is a constituent college in the University of Cambridge in England, United Kingdom.The college was founded by the Selwyn Memorial Committee in memory of the Rt Reverend George Selwyn , who rowed on the Cambridge crew in the first Varsity Boat Race in 1829, and went on to become the...

, graduating in Mathematics, and completing his studies at the London Early Music Centre. He established himself as a continuo-player with Europe's foremost specialist ensembles and in 1988 co-founded and co-directed the continuo-group Tragicomedia with Stephen Stubbs
Stephen Stubbs
Stephen Stubbs is a lutenist and music director and has been a leading figure in the European early music scene for nearly thirty years....

, until the group split up. He joined Jordi Savall
Jordi Savall
Jordi Savall i Bernadet is a Catalan viol player, conductor and composer. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for bringing the viol back to life on the stage...

's Hesperion XX as harp soloist, and was appointed Professor of Harp and Continuo at the Akademie für Alte Musik Bremen. At the end of the 1990s he was replaced, historical harp was taught by Hannelore Devaere.

In 1994 Andrew Lawrence-King formed his own ensemble, The Harp Consort
The Harp Consort
The Harp Consort is an international Early Music ensemble directed by Andrew Lawrence-King, specialising in Baroque Opera, early dance-music, and historical World Music....

, and was signed up by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi for a seven-year series of solo and ensemble recordings:
  • Luz y Norte, the medieval 'opera' Ludus Danielis
  • Italian Concerto, on which he is both conductor and concerto soloist
  • La púrpura de la rosa, the first New World
    New World
    The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...

     opera


His recital CDs include The Harp of Luduvico (Spanish & Italian renaissance
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...

) La Harpe Royale (French Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

), His Majesty's Harper (Dowland & Byrd
William Byrd
William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard and consort music.-Provenance:Knowledge of Byrd's biography expanded in the late 20th century, thanks largely...

) and The Secret of the Semitones (Bach
Bạch
Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...

), and he has also recorded Vivaldi's The Four Seasons
The Four Seasons (Vivaldi)
The Four Seasons is a set of four violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. Composed in 1723, The Four Seasons is Vivaldi's best-known work, and is among the most popular pieces of Baroque music. The texture of each concerto is varied, each resembling its respective season...

& Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....

's first opera, Almira
Almira
Almira, Königin von Castilien or Der in Krohnen erlangte Glückswechsel, is George Frideric Handel's first opera.-Background:Handel came to the city of Hamburg in the summer of 1703 and played as a violinist in the theatre at the Gänsemarkt, the local market place...

.

Recent projects

The Harp Consort
The Harp Consort
The Harp Consort is an international Early Music ensemble directed by Andrew Lawrence-King, specialising in Baroque Opera, early dance-music, and historical World Music....

 now records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi USA. Their chart-topping first release was Missa Mexicana: festive polyphony and popular dances from 17th-century Mexico. Their second CD, Miracles (songs by Gautier de Coincy, 13th -century Prior of Vic) won the Dutch "Edison" award: it was also Gramophone Magazine's Editor's Choice & The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

CD of the Year. Their latest release is El Arte de Fantasía: dances, tiento
Tiento
Tiento is a musical genre originating in Spain in the mid-15th century. It is formally analogous to the fantasia , found in England, Germany, and the Low Countries, and also the ricercare, first found in Italy. The word derives from the Spanish verb tentar , and was originally applied to music...

s & chansons from the Spanish Golden Age
Spanish Golden Age
The Spanish Golden Age is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise and decline of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. El Siglo de Oro does not imply precise dates and is usually considered to have lasted longer than an actual century...

.

Andrew Lawrence-King conducted a staged production of Peri
Jacopo Peri
Jacopo Peri was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera...

's Euridice
Euridice (opera)
Euridice is an opera by Jacopo Peri, with additional music by Giulio Caccini. The libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini is based on books X and XI of Ovid's...

at the Los Angeles Getty Centre for the 400th anniversary of the earliest opera, and this season will direct Handel's Almira
Almira
Almira, Königin von Castilien or Der in Krohnen erlangte Glückswechsel, is George Frideric Handel's first opera.-Background:Handel came to the city of Hamburg in the summer of 1703 and played as a violinist in the theatre at the Gänsemarkt, the local market place...

for the Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

 Stadia.

Accolades

His work on 17th-century dances with Steven Player & The Harp Consort
The Harp Consort
The Harp Consort is an international Early Music ensemble directed by Andrew Lawrence-King, specialising in Baroque Opera, early dance-music, and historical World Music....

 has won the ensemble an unparalleled reputation for stylish and entertaining stage-shows, and his duo album with Paul Hillier
Paul Hillier
Paul Douglas Hillier is a conductor, music director and baritone. He specializes in early music and contemporary art music, especially that by composers Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford and the Guildhall School of Music, beginning his professional career while a...

 was chosen by Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...

 as record of the year in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

magazine. He has been awarded an honorary doctorate
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...

 by Sheffield University for his achievements in Baroque opera.

Performances

He has led baroque opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

s and oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...

s at:
  • La Scala, Milan
  • Sydney Opera House
  • Casals Hall, Tokyo
  • Berlin Philharmonie
  • Vienna Konzerthaus
  • New York's Carnegie Hall
  • Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes
    Palacio de Bellas Artes
    The Palacio de Bellas Artes is the most important cultural center in Mexico City as well as the rest of the country of Mexico...

    .

Current activities

Andrew Lawrence-King now divides his time between solo recitals, tours with The Harp Consort
The Harp Consort
The Harp Consort is an international Early Music ensemble directed by Andrew Lawrence-King, specialising in Baroque Opera, early dance-music, and historical World Music....

, and appearances as guest director for orchestras, choirs and baroque operas in Europe, Scandinavia and the Americas, interspersed with worldwide performances of Luz y norte and Missa Mexicana. He is Professor of Early Harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

 & Continuo
Figured bass
Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones, in relation to a bass note...

 at the Escuela Superior de Musica de Catalunya (ESMUC) in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, and has been awarded a three-year fellowship by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council AHRB to research Spanish Baroque
Spanish Baroque
Spanish Baroque is a strand of Baroque architecture that evolved in Spain and its provinces and former colonies, notably Spanish America and Belgium....

 music-drama. His first solo recital for Harmonia Mundi USA will be Chorégraphie: Music for Louis XIV's Dancing Masters.

A keen sailor, Andrew holds the Royal Yachting Association
Royal Yachting Association
The Royal Yachting Association is the national governing body for certain watersports in the United Kingdom. Activities it covers include:* Sailing* Windsurfing* Motor cruising* Sportsboats* Personal watercraft* Powerboat racing...

's Ocean Yachtmaster certificate, and spends most of his free time aboard his boat, ‘Continuo’. His enjoyment of the sea is expressed in his revival of Guernesiaise traditional music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, Les Travailleurs de la Mer: Ancient Songs from a Small Island.

External links

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