Biography

A pioneer in Britain's historical performance movement, conductor Andrew Parrott has also specialized in 20th century and contemporary music. He has made more than 60 recordings with his Taverner Choir, Consort, and Players. Parrott was born in Walsall, in England's West Midlands, on March 10, 1947. His dual interest in early music and contemporary music dates back to his student days at Oxford University, where he studied performance practices of the 16th and 17th centuries and methods of researching them while also serving as assistant to composer Michael Tippett. Tippett was himself interested in Renaissance music and suggested to Parrott that he form a new Renaissance-oriented choir to perform at the 1973 Bath Festival, with which Tippett was associated. Parrott agreed, and the new choir became an ongoing operation and added instrumental groups under its umbrella. In 1982, Parrott conducted a performance of Bach cantatas for release on the Hyperion label. He has generally favored small-group performances of Bach, sometimes with one voice per part. Parrott has also served as a conductor of other early music groups, beginning with England's Musica Reservata in the 1970s. From 2001 to 2010, he was music director of the New York Collegium, and he has appeared with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Parrott has also conducted conventional orchestras, including the Slovak Philharmonic and the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague, and he served as artistic director of the Kent Opera and has appeared at Italy's La Scala, the Royal Swedish Opera at Drottningholm, and the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, London. His repertory of modern music is large, including works by figures as varied as Luigi Nono, Edgar Varèse, and John Tavener, and he has conducted several premieres, including that of Judith Weir's A Night at the Chinese Opera; he later recorded that opera on the NMC label. Parrott's performances are undergirded by research that has been compiled into several books, including The Essential Bach Choir (2000) and The Pursuit of Musick (2023). In 2023, he conducted the Munich Radio Orchestra in a recording of Mozart's Die verstellte Gärtnerin (the German version of La finta giardiniera, K. 196) on the CPO label. By that time, his recording catalog comprised more than 80 albums, appearing on Virgin Classics, BIS, Sony Classical, and many other labels. ~ James Manheim, Rovi