The quality of the singing - the blend and bass-anchored balance, the rounded, unforced tone, the control from solo voices - is exhilarating. The Gesualdo Six are the real deal.

Guy James, countertenor
Alasdair Austin, countertenor
Joseph Wicks, tenor
Josh Cooter, tenor
Michael Craddock, baritone
Owain Park, bass

The Gesualdo Six is an award-winning British vocal ensemble, made up of some of the UK's finest consort singers and led by Owain Park. Praised for its imaginative programmes and impeccable vocal balance, the ensemble formed in 2014 for a performance of Gesualdo's Tenebrae Responsories in Cambridge and has subsequently performed at many major festivals in the UK, Europe, North America and Australia. Highlights include a concert as part of the distinguished Deutschlandradio Debut Series, a Wigmore Hall debut in 2021, and collaborations with the Brodsky Quartet, London Mozart Players, Luxmuralis, William Barton and Matilda Lloyd.

The ensemble incorporates educational work into its activities, regularly holding workshops for young musicians and composers. The Gesualdo Six have held two composition competitions, with the 2019 edition attracting entries from over three hundred composers from around the world. The group has recently commissioned new works by Joanna Ward, Kerensa Briggs, Deborah Pritchard, Joanna Marsh and Richard Barnard, as well as a coronasolfège for six by Héloïse Werner.

Videos of the ensemble performing a varied selection of works filmed in Ely Cathedral in England have been viewed by millions online. The Gesualdo Six's first recording was released for Hyperion Records in early 2018 - an album of English renaissance polyphony, entitled 'English Motets'. In November 2019 their second album, of Advent music, 'Christmas', will be released. In April 2020 their album 'Fading' was released, mixing Renaissance pieces and contemporary compositions around the theme of the Office of Compline, the last Christian prayer of the day in the Liturgy of the Hours, marking the fall of night. The recording was awarded the 'Choral and Vocal Recording of the Year 2020' by the Australian classical music monthly Limelight. In 2021 the album, 'Josquin's Legacy', was released in the year of the 500th anniversary of the death of Josquin des Prés. In early 2022 'Tenebrae Responsories' was released, in which works from the golden age of polyphony by Tallis and Gesualdo are juxtaposed with contemporary music by Judith Bingham and a new commission by Joanna Ward, and in September 2022 their final album 'Lux Aeterna' was released, evoking the theme of mourning, but in the gentle light of works by Tallis, Byrd, Tavener, Morales, as well as by composers Eleanor Daley and Joanna Marsh.


OWAIN PARK

Owain Park was born in Bristol in 1993. As well as directing The Gesualdo Six, he maintains a busy schedule of conducting projects with ensembles including the BBC Singers, the Academy of Ancient Music and London Mozart Players. He is also the Musical Director of Cambridge Chorale.

Owain’s compositions are published by Novello and have been performed internationally by ensembles including the Tallis Scholars and the Aurora Orchestra. While at Cambridge University he studied orchestration with John Rutter, before undertaking a Masters degree in composition.

Owain is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO), and was awarded the Dixon Prize for improvisation, having been Senior Organ Scholar at Wells Cathedral and Trinity College Cambridge. He was a Tenebrae Associate Artist for two seasons, and has worked with ensembles including The Sixteen, Gabrieli Consort, and Polyphony.