Photo: Eric Richmond

I Fagiolini

Representation: General Management

Director: Robert Hollingworth

Winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Ensemble Award, 2006

I Fagiolini was founded in 1986.  Since 1995 it has undertaken a host of innovative productions of Renaissance and contemporary work, all designed around the core idea of how audiences actually receive music, much of which is several hundred years out of context.  With director Peter Wilson, it explored Italian Renaissance comedies as well as short French and Spanish pieces from the period.  With the same director, it produced a masked version of Handel’s Acis & Galatea and a puppet version of Purcell’s Indian Queen.  In 2004 John La Bouchardière’s The Full Monteverdi ran for 88 performances, finishing with a run at the Lincoln Center, New York.  It was hailed by The Times as ‘A compelling but upsetting piece of theatre… A bleak but brilliant evening’ and the Guardian as ‘an unforgettable experience’.  In 2005, with The Opera Group, they performed Ed Hughes’ The Birds for 10 singers, actor, two instrumentalists and no conductor.

The name I Fagiolini has been misspelt and mispronounced throughout the world, the group visiting some of its most interesting countries, often as ambassadors for the British Council.  Particular highlights include Hong Kong, China, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, The Ukraine and the USA.  In April 1997 they spent two weeks in South Africa working with a choir from Soweto on a partly improvised album, Simunye. This original and moving project was released by Erato on their crossover label Detour, toured to Europe, South Africa and Bermuda, returning to the UK in May of 2006 for an acclaimed UK tour.

Other collaborations have always been a pleasure: Bach with the OAE and Academy of Ancient Music, ‘Christmas Vespers in Venice’ with the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, Byrd with Fretwork and Concordia and a new project with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Robert Hollingworth.

I Fagiolini’s work on Monteverdi now appears on CD with ‘Sweet Torment’, the third in their Monteverdi series for Chandos (released in July).  In January 2007 The Full Monteverdi was filmed for TV and released on DVD, since reaching No. 2 in both the opera and classical music dvd charts on Amazon.  They have released twelve other CDs including English Renaissance works and a focus on Venice with Carnevale Veneziano, Andrea Gabrieli - The Madrigal in Venice, and a DVD of Vecchi’s masked comedy L’Amfiparnaso with actor Simon Callow.  This was the first DVD of a staged Renaissance work described  as ‘a silk purse [turned] into one beaded in gold… we end up with the best of all worlds’ (Gramophone) and ‘a triumph for I Fagiolini and Chandos and a benchmark for the DVD industry as a whole’ (International Record Review). Mind you, a French reviewer absolutely loathed it.  More at www.ifagiolini.com

Robert Hollingworth founded I Fagiolini in 1986. Directing this group has taken up most of his time since but he has directed other ensembles at home and abroad, most recently the BBC Singers, Norddeutscher Rundfunk Chor, Nederlands Kamerkoor, National Chamber Choir of Ireland and the Academy of Ancient Music. In 2004 Robert directed the Nederlands Kamerkoor in a ground-breaking new music-theatre project created with Henk Schut (Faust) acclaimed by the Dutch press and set in startling venues such as a Amsterdam vast ship-building yard, a disused station and Bremen Cathedral. Robert directed Opera Zuid’s underground production of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with Rufus Müller in the title role. He has conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra in a project with ‘The Full Monty’ composer, Anne Dudley and the BBC Singers in a programme of Jakob Gallus. Robert founded the spectacular Islington Winter Music Festival, writes and presents programmes for BBC Radio and has worked on a number of films including Quills. Robert regularly directs choral courses and is once again directing the choral course at Dartington International Summer School. In 2006 he was appointed as one of the artistic advisors to the York Early Music Festival and for 2009 to the Trigonale Festival, Austria.


Promoters please note: if you wish to include this biography in a concert programme etc, please contact Hazard Chase to ensure that you receive the most up to date version.
Email: Rebecca Sparkes