Polyphony & Stephen Layton
Biography Polyphony & Stephen Layton
Polyphony
was formed by Stephen Layton in 1986 for a concert in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. Since then the choir has performed and recorded regularly to critical acclaim throughout the world. Recent reviews declare Polyphony ‘one of the best small choirs now before the public’ (The Daily Telegraph) and ‘possibly the best small professional chorus in the world’ (Encore Magazine, USA).
For more than a decade Polyphony has given annual sell-out performances of Bach’s St John Passion and Handel’s Messiah at St John’s Smith Square. These have become notable events in London’s music calendar and have been broadcast by BBC Radio 3 and the EBU. According to The Evening Standard ‘no one but no one performs Handel’s Messiah better every year than the choir Polyphony’, and The Times ‘would rate it among the finest John Passions I have ever heard’.
Polyphony’s performance highlights include appearances at several BBC Proms, performing repertoire such as Arvo Pärt’s Passio, and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas; regular festival performances, including dates at the Aldeburgh and Cheltenham Festivals, and at the RTE Living Music Festival in Dublin; and numerous première performances including works by John Tavener in honour of his 60th birthday as part of the Barbican’s Great Performers series, and works by Arvo Pärt and Pawel Lukaszewski. Broadcast highlights include performances of works by Poulenc, Rautavaara, Tormis, Britten and Grainger for BBC Radio 3, works by Arvo Pärt for RTE, and an EBU broadcast of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.
Polyphony’s extensive discography on the Hyperion label encompasses works by Britten, Bruckner, Cornelius, Grainger, Grieg, Jackson, Lauridsen, Lukaszewski, MacMillan, Pärt, Poulenc, Rutter, Tavener, Walton, and Whitacre. The disc of Britten, Sacred and Profane, won a Gramophone Award and a Diapason d’Or in 2001, and the choir’s première recording of works by Arvo Pärt, Triodion, was Best of Category (Choral) at the 2004 Gramophone Awards. Polyphony also received Gramophone Award nominations in 2002 for the Walton CD, and in 2008 for Poulenc’s Gloria, described by Gramophone Magazine as ‘a performance of real distinction … simply incredible’.
Stephen Layton
Awarded with an MBE for services to classical music in October 2020, Stephen Layton is one of the most sought-after conductors of his generation. He has often been described as the finest exponent of choral music in the world today, and his ground-breaking approach has had a profound influence on choral music over the last thirty years. Founder and Director of Polyphony, and Director of Holst Singers, Layton was for seventeen years Fellow and Director of Music at Trinity College Cambridge. His other former posts include Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Chamber Choir, Chief Guest Conductor of the Danish National Vocal Ensemble, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of City of London Sinfonia, and Director of Music at the Temple Church, London.
Layton is regularly invited to work with the world’s leading choirs, orchestras and composers. His interpretations have been heard from the Sydney Opera House to the Concertgebouw, from Tallinn to São Paolo, and his recordings have won or been nominated for every major international recording award. He has two Gramophone Awards (and a further ten nominations), five Grammy nominations, the Diapason d’Or de l’Année in France, the Echo Klassik award in Germany, the Spanish CD Compact Award, and Australia’s Limelight Recording of the Year.
Layton is constantly in demand to premiere new works by the greatest established and emerging composers of our age. Passionate in his exploration of new music, Layton has introduced a vast range of new choral works to the UK and the rest of the world, transforming the music into some of the most widely performed today. Long-standing composer partnerships include Arvo Pärt, Sir John Tavener and Sir Karl Jenkins; in the Baltics, Ēriks Ešenvalds, Uģis Prauliņš and Veljo Tormis; and in America, Morten Lauridsen and Eric Whitacre, of whose music Layton made two Grammy-nominated recordings.
Other award-winning albums include recordings of Britten, Sir James MacMillan, Bruckner, Handel (including BBC Music Magazine’s ‘Best Messiah recording’ with Britten Sinfonia), and Bach’s St John Passion, Christmas Oratorio and Mass in B minor with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Layton’s recordings have consistently broken new ground, creating a new soundworld in British choral music.
