Fair Oriana
Penelope Appleyard
...performs internationally as a soloist and ensemble singer, specialising in early music. She has performed with many of the UK's leading ensembles including the New London Consort, the Monteverdi Choir and the Taverner Consort, and has appeared on numerous recordings. She also sings regularly with Emma Kirkby's Dowland Works. She is a member of Apollo5 with whom she tours internationally and sings everything from early music to folk, jazz and pop. She regularly appears as a soloist in oratorio, early opera and recital, and in 2018 made her debut at Cadogan Hall. In 2018 she also released a recording of Handel's Neun Deutsche Arien to critical acclaim. She graduated with distinction from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire from which she was awarded Honorary Membership in 2019, and where she has returned occasionally as a historical vocal coach.
Angela Hicks
Lancastrian soprano Angela Hicks is a versatile singer, experienced in early opera, oratorio, medieval, renaissance and chamber music. Since embarking on her musical career, she has performed internationally with some of the leading choirs and orchestras in the world, and has established herself as a specialist early music singer. Operatic highlights include the roles of Cupid in John Eliot Gardiner’s production Handel’s Semele, and the title role of Alcina in Brighton Early Music Festival’s latest production La Liberazione di Ruggiero, to name a few . She has sung as a soloist for John Eliot Gardiner, Jeffrey Skidmore and Václav Luks, in some of the foremost concert venues in the UK and Europe, such as La Scala and The Wigmore Hall, amongst many others. Prominent recordings include Bach cantata BWV 151, and Cupid’s aria from Semele with Soli Deo Gloria, and she also appeared on feature film The Favourite.
Meet the team
Angela Hicks
Harry Buckoke
...plays viola da gamba with Lux Musicae, London Dramma per Musica and Idrisi Ensemble. He appears on recordings with Fieri Consort, Chelys, Fair Oriana and Ensemble Augelletti. He has also created music for political burlesque shows, performance art, theatre, and for the Melissa West Dance Company. Harry has studied Viol with Paolo Pandolfo at Schola Cantorrum Basiliensis and has an MA in Aesthetics from NYU.
Sam Brown
… or “the Eric Clapton of the lute”, is one of the leading cordophonists of his generation. Known for his sensitive style and stagecraft, Sam enjoys an international career that has taken him to major venues across three continents. A graduate of the Royal College of Music, where he trained with Jakob Lindberg, he has also played for stage, radio, film and TV, notably at the Sam Wanamaker playhouse and alongside Jude Law in Firebrand (2022).
Sam is a director of Dowland Youth Works (an early music residency for teenagers), teaches at University of Bath, and is a deputy teacher at Junior Guildhall. His playing features on several CD releases, including a guitar concerto written for him by Barry Mills, and he performs regularly with Fair Oriana, Dowland Works, Passamezzo, and lute song quintet Dowland’s Foundry.
Alexander Duggan
Zands is a percussionist and has worked with ensembles and artists including Lady Gaga, Michael Giacchino (with the cinematic orchestra) Sir Karl Jenkins, Kate Tempest (with Orchestrate) and Sam Lee. He is also a full-time member of band Melt Yourself Down who are signed to the Decca label.
He has also worked extensively with theatre companies as a performer and musical director including: the RSC, The National Theatre, The Old Vic, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, The Royal Court and Shakespeare’s Globe. He studied at Berklee, The Guildhall (where he now teaches) and in Havana Cuba.
He writes original music with Louise Anna Duggan under the name Minihi and their debut release is with Deutsche Grammophon as part of their ‘Project 12’ playlist.
Alison Kinder
Alison read music at Oxford and was then given a scholarship by Trinity College of Music where she studied viol with Alison Crum, being awarded the college’s Silver Medal for Early Music Studies. She is a founder member of Chelys consort of viols where she enjoys researching and performing programmes covering all aspects of viol consort music. She has a particular interest in Renaissance viols (early viols made with no soundpost) with The Linarol Consort, who play on copies of the earliest surviving viol which now lives in the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna. Venturing into the 18th Century with a beautiful 7-string viol named Flo, Alison plays with lutenist Lynda Sayce in Apollo's Revels, a group that works with two baroque dancers and explores the characterful and expressive relationship between dance and music. Alison also has a great love of working with singers, and the affinity between the sound of the viol and the voice. She has recently been enjoying working with Musica Secreta on the newly discovered Lamentations of Jeremiah by Antoine Brumel.
Jonatan Bougt
Swedish theorbo player and guitarist Jonatan Bougt is an alumni of the Royal College of Music, London having studied for Jakob Lindberg, Carlos Bonell and Chris Stell supported by the Musicians’ Company Lambert Scholarship. During his studies, he won both the RCM Guitar Competition (2017) and the RCM Historical Performance Competition (2019) receiving the Century Fund Prize and the Richard III Prize. Jonatan has performed in venues like Centro Cultural Justicia Federal (Brazil), Große Universitätsaula Salzburg, Stockholm Concert Hall, Shakespeare Globe, Royal Festival Hall, Queen’s Gallery as well as radio and TV appearances. Jonatan is currently enjoying a residency at the Handel & Hendrix House as a Handel House Talent artist 2019-2021.
Photo credit: Handel & Hendrix
David Wright
David Wright is a musician of international acclaim who specialises in early keyboard instruments. Originally from London's East End, David was entirely self taught as a child until his late teens, he then went on to study at the Royal College of Music where he was the winner of numerous international competitions and prizes, most notably the Broadwood Harpsichord Competition. He pursues an extremely busy career as soloist, chamber musician and continuo player in orchestras and opera companies, recently recording with The Academy of Ancient Music. With an extensive discography to his credit, recent collaborations have included recordings with Tasmin Little, Julian Lloyd Webber, composer Debbie Wiseman (in the sound track to the BBC series Woolf Hall), the English Concert, Academy of Ancient Music and concerts with Ema Kirkby and James Bowman. After recording the monumental Goldberg Variations in 2007 David spent much of his time touring as a soloist until joining the blockbuster group Red Priest who now occupy most of his time with a busy international concert diary from America to the Far East. David has more recently been working with Joshua Bell and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields both as a modern pianist and harpsichordist. When not touring, David enjoys working on his crumbling Georgian house in Cambridgeshire which he shares with 9 harpsichords, 2 clavichords, 2 square pianos, 3 chamber organs and a cat called Jeremy.
