Katy Bircher & James Johnstone

Baroque Flute and Harpsichord

Katy Bircher is established as a specialist of early flutes, performing with such groups as The Gabrieli Consort and Players, Concerto Copenhagen, The Dunedin Consort, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and La Serenissima.

Following the Gramophone Award winning recording of Vivaldi concertos (The French Connection) with La Serenissima, Katy was selected to give the first performance and first recording of the newly discovered ‘Il Gran Mogul’ concerto by Vivaldi (The French Connection 2/La Serenissima/Avie).

Katy teaches at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at the Centre for Early Music Performance and Research at Birmingham University.

For more than two decades James Johnstone has been active as a soloist and continuo player, performing and recording with all the major UK-based period instrument ensembles, as well as groups in Germany, Canada, Italy and Holland.

He appears on 22 recordings on Deutsche Grammophon with the Gabrieli Consort and Player and 10 discs with Florilegium on Channel Classics. In 2016 he embarked on a series of Bach recordings beginning with the release of Bach’s Clavierübung III, recorded on the Wagner organ in Trondheim cathedral.

Recently he has given recitals in Oxford, Edinburgh, London, Saxony and Quito, Ecuador; toured the States with Trio Sonnerie, recorded Bach with John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir, toured and recorded with iFuriosi, Toronto and Harmonie Universelle Cologne.

James is professor of early keyboards at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.