Andrew Parrott

Andrew Parrott is perhaps best known for his pioneering work in ‘early’ repertory (from medieval music to that of Handel), notably in performances with his own Taverner Choir, Consort & Players –– Taverner Consort, for short –– who have also made 60 or so recordings together. These include his own première reconstruction of Bach’s lost Trauer-Music for Prince Leopold (2011), Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (2013) and Taverner’s Western Wind mass (2016; Gramophone Award). His earlier work as co-editor of the 700-page New Oxford Book of Carols (1992) led to The Carol Album: Seven Centuries of Christmas Music and other related recordings. 

A graduate of Oxford University, Andrew has always been involved in related musicological research and has published two challenging books, The Essential Bach Choir (2000) and Composers’ Intentions? (2015); a third, the product of a 40-year gestation, has recently emerged as The Pursuit of Musick (2022), an encyclopaedic and richly illustrated anthology of original written sources, reflecting some 600 years of European musical activity. 

Alongside his Taverner work, Parrott has explored classical repertory as Music Director of London Mozart Players (2000–06), through productions of operas by Haydn, Gluck and Mozart (six of them with Tafelmusik for Toronto’s Opera Atelier), and, with Ronald Brautigam, in recording Beethoven’s complete works for piano and orchestra (for BIS). 

New music, too, has also played an important part in Andrew Parrott’s wide-ranging musical life, formerly as an assistant to composer Michael Tippett and as a member of the vocal quartet Electric Phoenix. At the BBC Proms he has conducted major orchestral and choral works by Stravinsky and Judith Weir. The latter’s opera, A Night at the Chinese Opera, was also premiered (and later recorded) under his direction, and he has similarly championed the music of other British composers and of Slovakia’s Vladimír Godár.