News
Oxford Graduate Student Releases Debut Disc
The Marian Consort, a young professional early music vocal group founded and directed by Rory McCleery (DPhil candidate, The Queen's College) has just released its debut disc with Delphian Records, O Virgo benedicta - Music of Marian devotion from Spain's Century of Gold. The disc explores music from late sixteenth and early
seventeenth-century Spain, celebrating the rich compositional fruits of
the Siglo de Oro’s intensely competitive musical
culture. The works are all dedicated to the
Virgin Mary.
The disc has already been favourably reviewed by Andrew Clements in the Guardian, and was also played and given a warm recommendation on BBC Radio 3's CD Review on Saturday 12 February. (The programme can be heard for seven days after broadcast via the BBC iPlayer: click here and scroll through to approx. 20'00".)
Music from the disc was also played on BBC Radio 3's In Tune on Tuesday 15 February, again accessible via the BBC iPlayer here (scroll through to approx. 41'00").
Based in Oxford, the primary focus of The Marian Consort is on the music of the High Renaissance, though the group's repertoire also encompasses music from the Baroque to the present day. The Marian Consort was a finalist in the 2009 York Early Music Festival Young Artists’ Competition. The Consort has also been selected from a large and competitive field to take part in the La Caixa foundation's 'Antiqua' programme for young artists, which involves travelling to Spain throughout 2011 to give concerts, the first of which is in Barcelona as part of the Early Music Festival in April.
Director Rory McCleery read Music at St Peter's, where he also took the MSt in Musicology. As a counter-tenor Rory has recently completed the first part of an ‘apprenticeship’ with John Eliot Gardiner and The Monteverdi Choir, performing Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 throughout Europe (including at the Proms) and singing solos for concerts in the Duomo in Pisa and the Concertgebouw in Bruges. The Consort draws its singers from amongst the very best young singers on the early music scene today, and includes several Oxford music graduates now forging successful careers as singers with The Sixteen, The Gabrieli Consort, The Monteverdi Choir and other well-established choral groups.