Ep. 90 - Reinvigorating Historic Music with Modern Creativity - Robert Hollingworth

Choir Fam Podcast

“Uniformity is a two-edged sword, isn't it? Within a choir you need uniformity or you're not going to get a good blend, but within that uniformity, I want as much individuality as possible. I do a lot of 16th-Century music, early 17th-Century music, which has very, very high, passionate stakes. The individual has to come through. That's what makes it interesting.”
Robert Hollingworth was a chorister at Hereford Cathedral, set up his first solo-voice ensemble at the age of 16 and read music at New College, Oxford, followed by a year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In place of a conventional academic career he has spent 40 years directing vocal groups, notably I Fagiolini, which he founded at university in 1986.
Nearly 30 CDs and DVDs have included first recordings of works and collections by Byrd, Croce, Tomkins, Andrea Gabrieli and more. Recent releases include the multi-award winning Striggio 40-part mass, 'Amuse-Bouche' (French 20th century music including premiers of Francaix and Milhaud), and in 2017 'Monteverdi - The Other Vespers' which also featured the University of York’s music department's choir, The 24.
Winning the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Ensemble Award, Gramophone Awards and the Diapason D'Or de l'Annee, the group is 'In Association' at the University of York Music Department where, as well as teaching Undergraduate projects, Robert runs the MA in solo-voice ensemble singing.
As a freelancer conductor, Robert has directed the English Concert, Academy of Ancient Music and the BBC Concert Orchestra; among European choirs, Accentus (France), NDR Chor and RIAS Kammerchor (Germany), National Chamber Choir of Ireland, Voces8, BBC Singers and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain. He writes and presents programmes for Radio 3 including The Early Music Show and Discovering Music. During lockdown, he created and presented a new youtube series for choral music enthusiasts called 'SingTheScore'.
He is the newly appointed director of Stour Music, taking over after 65 years from Alfred and Mark Deller.
He founded and presents the UK's top choral music podcast 'Choral Chihuahua' with Eamonn Dougan and Nicholas Mulroy.
To get in touch with Robert, look for I Fagiolini on YouTube (@ifagiolini), Facebook (@ifagiolini), Instagram (@i_fagiolini), or their website, ifagiolini.com.
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Podcast music from Podcast.co
Photo in episode artwork by Trace Hudson