The Attaignant Consort
From 1st September 2010, The Attaignant Consort will be represented by the Renaissance specialist agent, Wieland Eggermont. For enquiries regarding Kate Clark, Nigel North and the consort please contact me and I will put you in touch with Wieland.
The Attaignant Consort was founded in 1998 by Kate Clark (Australia), Frederique Chauvet (France) en Marcello Gatti (Italy). Mathieu Langlois (Canada) has been the bass flutist of the ensemble since 2008. Fellow graduates of the Royal Conservatorium of The Hague, they all came to The Netherlands to specialise in the performance of historical flutes under either Wibert Hazelzet or Bart Kuijken. Drawn together by a fascination with the renaissance flute, they have collaborated over many years with the Italian flute-maker Giovanni Tardino, exploring the sound world of this, until now, little-known instrument.
In a repertoire of chansons and motets, instrumental fantasias and virtuoso diminutions, they bring a startling vitality and an exquisite delicacy to the music of the 15th and 16th centuries. The Attaignant Consort works from facsimile editions of original part-books rather than scores, and performs as often as possible from memory, mindful of the aural tradition of learning in which many sixteenth-century instrumentalists were educated. As well as performing written diminutions from the period, they both compose and improvise their own.
The musicians aspire to the highest ideal of sixteenth-century consort playing, namely to imitate human speech and song by means of such refined articulation, expressivity of sound and subtlety of dynamic nuance, that “only the form of the human body is missing” (S. Ganassi, 1535).
Each of the members is active in chamber ensembles and orchestras of international standing including Musiciens du Louvre, Das Freiburger Barockorchester, Die Rheinische Kantorei, Musica Antiqua Köln, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Musica ad Rhenum, Le Concert Spirituel, Concerto Köln and Cantus Cölln.
The consort regularly performs with lutenist Nigel North. It has been acclaimed for concerts in Italy, Germany, Switzerland and The Netherlands. The ensemble’s first CD “Madame d’amours: Music for Renaissance Flute Consort” with lutenist Nigel North, was released on the Ramée lable, to critical acclaim, in 2007.