Emma Kirkby
Encyclopedia
Dame Carolyn Emma Kirkby, DBE (b. 26 February 1949) is an English
soprano singer and one of the world's most renowned early music
specialists. She attended Sherborne School For Girls
in Dorset and was a classics
student at Somerville College, Oxford
, and an English
teacher before developing a career as a soloist. She was appointed Dame Commander
of the Order of the British Empire in the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours list.
and Sherborne School For Girls
in Dorset. Her father was Geoffrey John Kirkby
, a Royal Navy Officer.
Originally, Kirkby had no expectations of becoming a professional singer. As a classics student at Oxford and schoolteacher she sang for pleasure in choirs and small groups, notably Schola Cantorum of Oxford
, always feeling at home most in Renaissance
and Baroque
repertoire. The fact that her voice was not a particularly large one meant that her potential as a soloist was not recognised immediately.
Kirkby was a founding member of the Taverner Choir
, and in 1973 began her long association with the Consort of Musicke
. She 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 music 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.
Kirkby has built long term relationships with chamber groups and orchestras, in particular London Baroque, the Freiburger Barockorchester
, L’Orfeo (of Linz) and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
, and now with some of the younger groups – the Palladian Ensemble and Florilegium
. She has also been the Patron of Derby Choral Union
since 1993.
to madrigals of the Italian and English Renaissance, cantatas and oratorios of the Baroque, works of Mozart, Haydn and J. C. Bach. Recent recordings include: Handel
: Opera Arias and Overtures 2 for Hyperion, J.S.Bach wedding cantatas for Decca, Bach Cantatas 82a and 199 for Carus; and four projects for BIS: with London Baroque, one of Handel motets and one of 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, an album of songs by the American composer Amy Beach
, who died in 1944.
More recent recordings: an anthology, Classical Kirkby, devised and performed with Anthony Rooley
, on the BIS label, 2002; Cantatas by Cataldo Amodei, also for BIS, 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 Musique and Sweet Poetrie, also for BIS, 2007; lute songs from Europe with Jakob Lindberg.
In 1999 Kirkby was voted Artist of the Year by Classic FM
Radio listeners and in November 2000 she received the Order of the British Empire. BBC Music Magazine
in April 2007 published a survey of critics to nominate “The 20 greatest sopranos”, controversially placing Kirkby at number 10
Despite all her recording activity, Kirkby prefers live concerts, especially the pleasure of performing favourite programmes with colleagues.
, with whom she has a son.
On 21 January 2011 it was announced that Dame Emma had been awarded the Queen's Medal for Music, an award funded by the Privy Purse
and given to an individual who has had a major influence on the musical life of the nation.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
soprano singer and one of the world's most renowned 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,...
specialists. She attended Sherborne School For Girls
Sherborne School For Girls
Sherborne Girls is an independent day and boarding school for girls located in Sherborne, North Dorset. The school was founded in 1895 by Mr. and Mrs. Kenelm Wingfield Digby...
in Dorset and was a classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
student at Somerville College, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, and an English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
teacher before developing a career as a soloist. She was appointed Dame Commander
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
of the Order of the British Empire in the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours list.
Education and early career
Emma Kirkby was educated at Hanford SchoolHanford School
Hanford School is a girls' boarding preparatory school located in Hanford, near Shillingstone, Child Okeford, Dorset, England, established in 1947 and located in a grade II* listed house built in 1604 by Sir Robert Seymer.-Background:...
and Sherborne School For Girls
Sherborne School For Girls
Sherborne Girls is an independent day and boarding school for girls located in Sherborne, North Dorset. The school was founded in 1895 by Mr. and Mrs. Kenelm Wingfield Digby...
in Dorset. Her father was Geoffrey John Kirkby
Geoffrey John Kirkby
Geoffrey Kirkby, DSC and two bars, was a captain in the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. He served during the Second World War, mainly at sea in small ships, and became one of the Royal Navy's most decorated officers....
, a Royal Navy Officer.
Originally, Kirkby had no expectations of becoming a professional singer. As a classics student at Oxford and schoolteacher she sang for pleasure in choirs and small groups, notably Schola Cantorum of Oxford
Schola Cantorum of Oxford
Schola Cantorum of Oxford is the longest running chamber choir of Oxford University, and one of the longest established and widely known chamber choirs in the UK. It was founded in 1960 by the British-Hungarian conductor Laszlo Heltay as 'The Collegium Musicum Oxoniense' before adopting the name...
, always feeling at home most in Renaissance
Renaissance music
Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...
and Baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
repertoire. The fact that her voice was not a particularly large one meant that her potential as a soloist was not recognised immediately.
Kirkby was a founding member of the Taverner Choir
Taverner Consort and Players
Taverner Consort and Players is a period instrument ensemble: baroque orchestra , vocal consort and Choir, named after the 16th century English composer John Taverner....
, and in 1973 began her long association with the Consort of Musicke
The Consort of Musicke
The Consort of Musicke is a British early music group, founded in 1969 by lutenist Anthony Rooley, the ensemble's Artistic Director. Members of the group have included such well-known artists as sopranos Emma Kirkby and Evelyn Tubb, alto Mary Nichols, tenors Paul Agnew, Andrew King and Joseph...
. She took part in the early Decca Florilegium recordings with both the Consort of Musicke and the Academy of Ancient Music
Academy of Ancient Music
The Academy of Ancient Music is a period-instrument orchestra based in Cambridge, England. Founded by harpsichordist Christopher Hogwood in 1973, it was named after a previous organisation of the same name of the 18th century. The musicians play on either original instruments or modern copies of...
, at a time when most college-trained sopranos were not seeking a sound appropriate for early music 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.
Kirkby has built long term relationships with chamber groups and orchestras, in particular London Baroque, the Freiburger Barockorchester
Freiburger Barockorchester
Freiburger Barockorchester is a German orchestra founded in 1987, with the mission statement: "to enliven the world of baroque music with new sounds"...
, L’Orfeo (of Linz) and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is a British period instrument orchestra. The OAE is a resident orchestra of the Southbank Centre, London, associate orchestra at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and has its headquarters at Kings Place...
, and now with some of the younger groups – the Palladian Ensemble and Florilegium
Florilegium early music ensemble
Florilegium is an early music ensemble based in London. The Director, Ashley Solomon co-founded the group in 1991, and Florilegium's performances range from intimate chamber music to large-scale orchestral repertoire...
. She has also been the Patron of Derby Choral Union
Derby Choral Union
Derby Choral Union is one of the UK’s longest standing choral societies having been formed in 1866. The choir was established to perform choral music of the highest quality, a tradition it strives to maintain to this day. The repertoire includes traditional choral works as well as music by...
since 1993.
Recordings
Kirkby has made well over a hundred recordings of all kinds, from sequences of Hildegard of BingenHildegard of Bingen
Blessed Hildegard of Bingen , also known as Saint Hildegard, and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath. Elected a magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and...
to madrigals of the Italian and English Renaissance, cantatas and oratorios of the Baroque, works of Mozart, Haydn and J. C. Bach. Recent recordings include: 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....
: Opera Arias and Overtures 2 for Hyperion, J.S.Bach wedding cantatas for Decca, Bach Cantatas 82a and 199 for Carus; and four projects for BIS: with London Baroque, one of Handel motets and one of Christmas music by Scarlatti
Scarlatti
Scarlatti was the name of several Italian composers:*Alessandro Scarlatti , Baroque composer known for operas and chamber cantatas*Francesco Scarlatti , Baroque composer and musician, brother of Alessandro Scarlatti...
, Bach and others; with the Royal Academy Baroque Orchestra the first recording of the newly-rediscovered Gloria
Gloria (Handel)
George Frideric Handel's Gloria is a sacred solo cantata, a setting of the Gloria, the liturgical part of the Mass, for soprano and strings. Handel may have composed it in Germany before departing for Italy in 1706...
by Handel; and with the Romantic Chamber Group of London, Chanson d'amour, an album of songs by the American composer Amy Beach
Amy Beach
Amy Marcy Cheney Beach was an American composer and pianist. She was the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music. Most of her compositions and performances were under the name Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.-Early years:Beach was born Amy Marcy Cheney in Henniker, New Hampshire into...
, who died in 1944.
More recent recordings: an anthology, Classical Kirkby, devised and performed with Anthony Rooley
Anthony Rooley
Anthony Rooley is a British lutenist. He founded in 1969 and directs the early music ensemble the Consort of Musicke, which continues to be one of the chief vehicles for his inspiration, among many other activities and interests...
, on the BIS label, 2002; Cantatas by Cataldo Amodei, also for BIS, 2004; with Fretwork, consort songs by William 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...
, 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 Musique and Sweet Poetrie, also for BIS, 2007; lute songs from Europe with Jakob Lindberg.
In 1999 Kirkby was voted Artist of the Year by Classic FM
Classic FM (UK)
Classic FM, one of the United Kingdom's three Independent National Radio stations, broadcasts classical music in a popular and accessible style.-Overview:...
Radio listeners and in November 2000 she received the Order of the British Empire. BBC Music Magazine
BBC music magazine
BBC Music Magazine is a magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom by BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC. Reflecting the broadcast output of BBC Radio 3, the magazine is devoted primarily to classical music, though with sections on jazz and world music. Each edition comes...
in April 2007 published a survey of critics to nominate “The 20 greatest sopranos”, controversially placing Kirkby at number 10
Despite all her recording activity, Kirkby prefers live concerts, especially the pleasure of performing favourite programmes with colleagues.
Personal life
She married lutenist Anthony RooleyAnthony Rooley
Anthony Rooley is a British lutenist. He founded in 1969 and directs the early music ensemble the Consort of Musicke, which continues to be one of the chief vehicles for his inspiration, among many other activities and interests...
, with whom she has a son.
On 21 January 2011 it was announced that Dame Emma had been awarded the Queen's Medal for Music, an award funded by the Privy Purse
Privy Purse
The Privy Purse is the British Sovereign's remaining private income, mostly from the Duchy of Lancaster. This amounted to £13.3 million in net income for the year to 31 March 2009. The Duchy is a landed estate of approximately 46,000 acres held in trust for the Sovereign since 1399. It also has...
and given to an individual who has had a major influence on the musical life of the nation.