Brook Street Band

Brook Street Band – ‘ensemble so pin-sharp it merits a safety warning’ (BBC Music Magazine) – is named after the London street where Handel lived. Formed in 1997 by baroque cellist Tatty Theo, it rapidly established itself as leading Handel specialists, winning grants, awards, and broadcasting opportunities from organisations including Radio 3 and the Handel Institute. The Band has enjoyed an unusually stable core-membership, its players working together for over twenty years; this longevity has enabled them to develop a style of music-making that is precise and spontaneous, musicians able to react instinctively to each other and play as one.

Whilst eighteenth-century chamber repertoire has always been the Band’s driving passion, BSB also relishes collaborations with conductors, choirs, and venues on larger-scaled works by Handel and his contemporaries, such as its Dragon of Wantley project, which won the 2023 BBC Music Magazine award in the Opera category. It also savours the chance to explore earlier seventeenth-century repertoire, with programmes exploring the music of composers including Corelli, Salamone Rossi, Monteverdi, Schütz, Biber and Buxtehude, and an entire festival dedicated to Muffat’s music and influence devised for London’s St. John’s Smith Square.

The Band performs and teaches throughout the UK and Europe and with future projects in development for the USA. It has established love:Handel, its own critically acclaimed music festival which takes place biennially in Norwich, incorporating wide-ranging educational work supported through its charitable trust.

The Band regularly broadcasts for Radio 3 and Classic FM and its extensive discography has been singled out for critical acclaim, accolades including Gramophone Magazine Editor’s Choice and inclusion in the chamber music/small ensemble selection category at the Grammy Awards.

The Brook Street Band played a central role in the world’s first ever ‘Handeliades’, immersive 4-day events of concerts, masterclasses and talks given by world-renowned Handel experts in 2021 and 2023.

www.brookstreetband.co.uk