Soprano Emma Kirkby is a British early music specialist who has sung on over 100 recordings with prominent performers such as the Taverner Players, the Consort of Musicke, Academy of Ancient Music, London Baroque, Fretwork, The Purcell Quartet, L’Orfeo of Linz and Freiburger Barockorchester.

She taught for many years at Dartington International Summer School in the UK, and remains busy each year at specialist summer academies, in Germany, Austria, Italy and the USA. She also gives regular classes at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

Emma was fortunate to encounter Renaissance vocal polyphony while still at school, and to continue with that when she joined the Schola Cantorum at Oxford, where she studied Classics; but best of all, she encountered there period instruments known to Renaissance and Baroque composers, - the lute, harpsichord, wind and strings, whose sound and human scale drew from her an instinctive response. As a schoolteacher and amateur singer she was soon invited to perform professionally with pioneer groups, and long partnerships followed both in Britain and abroad, with ensembles, individual players and record companies, so that Emma’s voice and style are now recognised worldwide.

Among her many recordings, for Decca’s Oiseau-Lyre, Hyperion, EMI, Chandos and BIS, are:

Hildegarde of Bingen - Sequences

Tromboncino - frottole

William Byrd - Consort songs

John Dowland and John Danyel - songs

Robert Jones and Robert Johnson - songs

Sigismondo D’India – arias duets and madrigali

Heinrich Schütz – madrigali

Jacques de Wert - madrigali

Monteverdi – duets, solos and madrigali

Monteverdi – Vespro della beata Vergine (1610)

Henry Lawes – songs and dialogues

John Blow – Songs and dialogues

Henry Purcell- Songs, Odes and theatre pieces

Henry Purcell – Dido and Aeneas

Couperin and DeLalande - Leçons de Ténèbres

Various composers- Songs for Mrs. Arne

Vivaldi - Opera arias and motets

Handel – opera arias, cantatas and motets

Handel - “Messiah”

JS Bach - H-Moll Messe

JS Bach - cantatas

JS Bach - MatthaeusPassion

Montéclair - Cantates

Mozart – “Requiem”, motets and concert arias

Haydn - “Creation”

Haydn - Canzonets

Amy Beach - songs

It has always been a joy for Emma to visit Italy; she has tender memories of regular concerts in San Maurizio, Milano, in the 1980s, of workshops in Coccaglio in the ‘90s, and since then in Friuli, Cremona, Bari, Roma, Bevagna, Trevi and most recently Firenze and Urbino It is exciting to see young Italian singers finding their own relationship with such marvellous repertoire, and recreating the vocal glories of the 16^th and 17^th centuries; yes, opera was born there, but in the early years its heart was in chamber music and the exquisite subtleties of vocal ensemble, developed by consummate artists who attracted the best composers then living.

Emma was made a Dame in 2007, and awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music in 2011, the REMA Early Music Award in 2018, in recognition of her career as an artist and mentor to young early music performers, and the Lifetime Achievement Award by “Gramophone” magazine in 2019. Amazed by all this, she is nevertheless glad of the recognition it implies for a way of music-making that values ensemble, eloquence and stillness more than sheer volume or mere display. Above all, she is delighted to see a new generation of singers and players bringing their skills and enthusiasm to the enterprise. (Photo: Miguel Barreto)