Lewes Baroquefest Performers 2026
The small county town of Lewes is blessed with a diverse and exceptionally large group of highly talented baroque artists. Both professional and amateur groups flourish in the area. Lewes Baroquefest will be showcasing top professional virtuoso instrumentalists and singers, alongside outstanding local choir the Baroque Collective Singers.
Baroque Collective
The Baroque Collective is a period instrument orchestra based in Lewes, East Sussex.
Directed by conductor and singer John Hancorn and violinist Alison Bury, The Baroque Collective offers an enticing and flexible range of programmes from Locke and Purcell to Mozart and from trios to major works with chorus. Performances include Handel’s Messiah with the East Sussex Bach Choir and Bach’s St John Passion with the Esterházy Chamber Choir in Lewes; Purcell’s King Arthur with the Fletching Singers; ‘The Cares of Lovers’ at the Uckfield Festival and Handel’s Acis and Galatea at the Montpelier and Powis Festival, Brighton; and regular performances of major baroque choral works with the East Sussex Bach Choir and the Baroque Collective Singers.
Founded by conductor John Hancorn in 2013, The Baroque Collective Singers is a chamber choir made up of the very best singers from Lewes and the surrounding area. The choir aims to explore a wide range of repertoire, a cappella and with instruments, with a focus on baroque.
The Choir presented Christmas Baroque on Sunday 15 December 2024 and sang Cardoso’s Lamentations for Maundy Thursday and Schütz’s St Matthew Passion on Friday 18 April 2025. Future plans include a charity concert in aid of the Dame Vera Lynn Children’s Charity at Court Gardens Farm in Ditchling on 6 July 2025 and a performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio on Sunday 21 December 2025.
Baroque Collective Singers
Beth Stone
Julia Bishop
Julia Bishop discovered her love of Early Music whilst studying at the Royal College of Music and is now recognised as one of the leading Baroque violinists of her generation. She has toured the world and made extensive recordings with many period instrument orchestras in the UK including the English Concert and as concertmaster for 5 years with the Gabrieli Consort and Players. In 1997 Julia co-founded the ensemble Red Priest with recorder Piers Adams and enjoyed 19 years of huge success touring Europe, America and the Far East, and making 6 highly acclaimed recordings.
Recently Julia has become increasingly popular for her lively and informative teaching on workshops and courses around the UK and abroad. She heads the Early Music department at Chichester University and has been a guest teacher at the Royal Academy and Royal College of Music.
Julia is currently enjoying developing repertoire and performing concerts with soprano Ana-Maria Rincon and keyboardist Howard Beach in their chamber ensemble Purcell’s Muse.
Photo: Beth Mercer
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Alison Bury
Alison Bury has been involved with the British early music scene since her student days at the Royal College of Music. In the 1980s she played with all the pioneering groups including the Academy of Ancient Music, the English Concert and the English Baroque Soloists. She led the EBS until 2008, touring all over the world and recording the Mozart operas and many of Bach’s sacred choral works, including the Cantatas in the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000 with Sir John Eliot Gardiner. In 1986 she was one of the founder members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. With OAE she has appeared on concert platforms throughout the British Isles, Europe and the USA as leader, soloist and director, as well as playing at Glyndebourne for many years, up until 2015. She lives in Lewes and is well known in the area as the leader of the Baroque Collective Players. In 2025 she directed a concert with the Chichester based group, The Consort of Twelve, and has been invited back to play with them again in 2027. Alongside her orchestral playing she enjoys chamber music with her baroque trio, the Geminiani Ensemble, which has performed in Music at Kilkenny, the Sligo Early Music Festival and in the Workshop Series in Lewes which she directs along with her husband Richard Earle. She gives duo recitals with harpsichordist Maggie Cole, and also plays in a flute/violin/harpsichord trio with Rachel Beckett and Alastair Ross.
Flauguissimo
Flauguissimo was founded by flautist Yu-Wei Hu and guitarist/theorbo-player Johan Löfving whilst studying at the Royal College of Music in London. Their imaginative programmes have dazzled audiences across the world, and their keen interest in both early and contemporary music has made them sought-after teachers at universities and music colleges. Recent venues include Kings Place, Cadogan Hall, St. John’s Smith Square, Sage Gateshead and St George’s Bristol. Flauguissimo frequently expand their ensemble in collaboration with other artists as part of their vision to deliver relevant, inspiring performances of historical repertoires. In 2019 their debut album ‘A Salon Opera’ was released under Resonus Classics to great critical acclaim. This was followed by ‘To the Northern Star’, featuring works by Swedish composer Johan Helmich Roman.
John Hancorn is music director of the Baroque Collective Singers, East Sussex Bach Choir and Eastbourne Choral Society and co-director of The Baroque Collective and Lewes Baroquefest!. Performances for the Brighton Early Music Festival include Bach’s St John Passion and B Minor Mass, Monteverdi Vespers, Handel Semele, and a staged performance of Purcell The Fairy Queen. John leads vocal workshops and masterclasses specializing in baroque repertoire including regular visits to Early Music Fora and ‘Sing and Discover’ days with Richard Wigmore throughout the UK. He is Associate Lecturer in Choral Studies at the University of Chichester Conservatoire; has curated large-scale charity concerts for local charity Homelink, including at Glyndebourne; and is Artistic Director of the Britten: 50 Years On Festival in Lewes during 2026.
Photo: Robert Knights
John Hancorn
Charles Humphries music career began in the United Kingdom as a 7year old chorister at Salisbury Cathedral and since those days’ music has taken him to all parts of the globe. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Music, he was honored with the letters ARAM (Associate Royal Academy of Music) for his services to music. Known for his intelligent interpretations of baroque and renaissance music, he has been one of the most sought-after countertenors worldwide for the past thirty years. Throughout that time his career, both as a consort singer and soloist, have paired him with numerous distinguished conductors such as Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Richard Hickox, Paul McCreesh, Robert King, Rinaldo Allessandrini, Nicholas McGegan, James O’Donnell, Trevor Pinnock, Lars Ulrik Mortensen and Harry Christophers. His discography enters the hundreds, and his solo album of Bach Cantatas by JS Bach continues to create much attention on the Claudio label with Naxos worldwide distribution. He was a major contributor to the Bach cantata pilgrimage with Sir John Eliot Gardiner He shares his time between orchestras and ensembles in the Uk and the USA with voice studios in each country. He is sought after by numerous niveristies fro masterclasses and workshops.
Charles Humphries
British tenor Hugo Hymas is acclaimed for his interpretations of baroque and renaissance repertoire. Recent engagements include Handel’s Solomon with OAE, Bach’s Magnificat with Le Poème Harmonique, Messiahwith St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Haydn’s Armida in Potsdamer Winteroper, and Acis and Galatea with Vox Luminis. He also performs Stravinsky with The Façade Ensemble and explores 20th-century repertoire with Leicester International Music Festival. Hymas has appeared at Glyndebourne, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, and with ensembles including The English Concert, Arcangelo, Les Arts Florissants, and Collegium Vocale Gent. A former Britten Pears Young Artist, he studied Music at Durham University.
Hugo Hymas
Annette Isserlis
Annette Isserlis
Jean Kelly
Jean Kelly
Annette Isserlis has appeared with all the UK's leading period instrument orchestras, as well as Ton Koopman's Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. For many years she was Principal viola for Sir John Eliot's English Baroque Soloists and Andrew Parrott's Taverner Consort and Players. She was a founder member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and a member of Sir Andras Schiff's Cappella Andrea Barca. Her various guest principal appearances include Ivan Fischer's Budapest Festival Orchestra. She is a regular chamber-music participant at the International Musicians' Seminar, Prussia Cove, and her teaching appointments have included GSMD, RCM, RAM and RNCM. Other activities have included record-producing and musica-arranging, and for the past 7 years she has produced a monthly podcast for OAE called 'Tea with Netty'
Jean Kelly
Jean Kelly hails from an Irish family of several generations of professional musicians. Jean won a scholarship to study harp at the Royal College of Music, London. She is in great demand as a versatile harpist, with an eclectic career ranging from Early Music to Contemporary Classical and Folk Music.
She has recorded three CDs with the Locrian Ensemble, including Handel Harp Concerto and Mozart Flute and harp Concerto. A CD of Chamber Music by Richard Arnell was Editor’s Choice in Gramophone magazine. She has also recorded for the Guild, Stockfisch and Somm labels. Jean has appeared as a concerto soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra and Göttingen Symphony Orchestra and plays guest Principal harp with orchestras including BBC Concert Orchestra, CBSO and BBCNOW.
Jean has performed on film and TV soundtracks, for composers such as Debbie Wiseman, Jonny Greenwood, Max Richter and Dario Marianelli. She played solo harp on Michael Kiwanuka’s Mercury Prize winning album.
Jean is involved with Rune Ensemble and The Telling playing medieval, gothic and celtic harps. She loves the freedom of playing and improvising with these groups, extending beyond the printed notes, and drawing on her past musical influences.
English soprano Charlotte La Thrope graduated with first-class honours in Music from Durham University, receiving the ‘Most Outstanding Soloist’ award, and later completed her studies at the Royal Academy of Music with distinction in 2018. She performs widely across Europe and South America, collaborating with acclaimed ensembles. Operatic roles include Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro), Pamina (The Magic Flute), Eurydice (Orfeo), Iris (Semele), L’Enfant (L’Enfant et Les Sortilèges), and Angel (Jephtha), praised as “poised, sweet and true.” Recently qualified as a psychotherapist, Charlotte balances her singing career with supporting others’ mental health.
Charlotte La Thrope
Catherine Rimer
Catherine Rimer is a versatile cellist and teacher who enjoys a busy freelance career, performing and recording internationally with leading ensembles on both period and modern instruments. She currently plays principal 'cello with Sir John Eliot Gardiner's new Constellation Orchestra and she has been a member of the English Baroque Soloists, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, playing on numerous projects for almost 30 years, including many seasons at Glyndebourne.
As guest principal she has worked with Cecilia Bartoli & Les Musiciens du Prince, Dunedin Consort, English Concert, ENO, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Les Siècles and The Sixteen in repertoire ranging from Purcell to Stravinsky.
Chamber music has always featured strongly, including tours of Europe and the USA with the Skampa Quartet and recording with the Florin Ensemble, with whom she commissioned Hugh Wood to write his string trio, Itháka.
Catherine has taught at the Royal College of Music since 2003, led continuo workshops for the Britten-Pears School and FEMUSC, Brazil and given solo masterclasses at leading institutions in the USA.
Born and raised on Tyneside, she studied the cello at the RNCM & RAM where she also had inspiring quartet coaching from Eli Goren, William Pleeth and the Amadeus Quartet. Masterclasses with Steven Isserlis at Prussia Cove led her to further postgraduate study with Steven Doane at the Eastman School, NY where she pursued a new interest in historical performance practice. Catherine was awarded the ARAM in 2009.
Kristiina Watt
David Wright
David Wright was an almost entirely self-taught musician, first coming to the harpsichord as an unlikely refuge from his East End gangland upbringing before gaining a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where he won several prizes, including the International Broadwood Competition, and from which he graduated with distinction.
Since then he has performed and recorded with some of the world’s leading musicians including Emma Kirkby, James Bowman, Tasmin Little, Joshua Bell and Julian Lloyd Webber, and as a soloist with many groups of international renown. He has directed numerous concerts from the harpsichord, including the first modern performance of Arne's The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, and has given many solo recitals, notably of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
In 2011 David joined Red Priest, with whom he has recorded two acclaimed CDs and toured to many parts of the world. In addition to this he is active as one of the UK’s busiest working harpsichordists performing with several of the country’s leading period instrument ensembles and chamber orchestras – including the Academy of Ancient Music and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields - as well as building, tuning and restoring harpsichords and chamber organs.
David Wright
Lutenist and singer Kristiina Watt performs widely across the UK and internationally with ensembles including the Academy of Ancient Music, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, The English Concert, and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She collaborates with vocal groups such as The Marian Consort, appearing on Una Poesia Muta, praised as “flawless” by Gramophone. Specialising in Renaissance and Baroque repertoire, she focuses on self-accompanied performance. Roles include Dido and Aeneas and La liberazione di Ruggiero. Trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Guildhall, she now advocates for new music for early instruments with The Portrait Players.
