Elizabeth Kenny

She has devised several critically acclaimed recordings of solo music from the ML Lute Book, and, with long-standing vocal partners, songs by Lawes, Purcell and Dowland. Her most recent solo recording, Ars Longa (Linn Records) was nominated for the BBC Music Magazine Solo Instrumental recording of the year 2019. She has an extensive discography of collaborations with chamber ensembles across Europe and in the USA. In 2017, Shakespeare Songs with Ian Bostridge and co-collaborators won the Grammy best solo vocal recital, and in the same year, viol consort Phantasm and Kenny won the Gramophone Early Music award for their recording of Dowland’s Lachrime.

Elizabeth founded Theatre of the Ayre in 2007, a group which has sealed its reputation for an innovative and improvisatory approach to seventeenth-century music over the course of its various tours. Notable recording projects include John Blow’s Venus and Adonis(Wigmore Live, 2011), The Masque of Moments (Linn, 2017) and 17th Century Playlist with tenor Ed Lyon with Delphian Records.

In thirty years of touring, Elizabeth has played with many of the world’s best period instrument groups, including extended spells with Les Arts Florissants and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She has given premiere performances of solo and chamber pieces by James MacMillan, Benjamin Oliver, Heiner Goebbels, Rachel Stott and Nico Muhly.

Elizabeth has been professor of Lute at the Academy since 1999, and Dean of Students since 2020. She was Professor of Musical Performance at the University of Southampton and Director of Performance and Performance Studies at the University of Oxford between 2012 and 2020.