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Determined to communicate the full power of 17th- and 18th-century music as directly as possible, the collective Solomon’s Knot was founded in London in 2008. Led by Artistic Director Jonathan Sells, the group performs without a conductor, the singers by heart. What began a decade ago as a promise never to lose the joy of performing, to blow the dust off early music and break down the barriers of classical music has evolved into Solomon’s Knot’s reputation today: direct communication, adventurous programming and bold trademark performances from memory.
Their flexible approach enables them o explore a wide range of repertoire, especially music written before 1800, from the madrigals of Gesualdo to J.S. Bach's Mass in B minor BWV 232 with 10 singers and 20 instrumentalists, or the rediscovery of the anonymous opera L'ospedale (c1650), available on DVD.
By exploring new ways of presenting ancient music to ‘modern’ ears, eyes and minds, we work closely together with directors, composers, choreographers, visual artists, and other ensembles. From 2013 to 2017 Solomon’s Knot was part of Snape Malting’s inaugural Open Space development scheme. Recent collaborations include projects with Spira mirabilis, Sven Werner, James Hurley, Tim Caroll, Federay Holmes and Les Passions de l’Ame.
They are grateful to Sir John Eliot Gardiner for his invitations to the Bachfest Leipzig in 2016 and his Barbican Bach Weekend in 2018. We have also appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival, Händel-Festspiele Halle, Newbury Spring Festival, Thüringer Bachwochen, Regensburger Tage Alter Musik, Spitalfields Music Winter Festival, London Handel Festival, and St John’s Smith Square Christmas Festival. Solomon’s Knot finished 2018 with the revival of their project ‘Christmas in Leipzig' in Nottingham and London’s Milton Court, recorded live and released on Sony Classical in 2019. “Time and again zig-zagging choruses, lightly accompanied, sprang into fire almost as if by spontaneous combustion. Most exciting.” The Times *****
Concerts in 2019 included their Wigmore Hall debut with the second version of J.S. Bach's Johannes-Passion BWV 245, returns to the Thüringer Bachwochen, Bachfest Leipzig, and St George’s Bristol, a residency at the Ryedale Festival, and our first appearance at the Bachwochen Thun (Switzerland).
SKonnect, Solomon’s Knot’s education strategy, aims to take the excitement of so-called ‘early’ music into classrooms and workshops around the UK and further afield. Recently, schools in Nottingham and London have benefitted from hearing musicians perform for them live and explain the wonders of this colourful and exhilarating repertoire. |
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Solomon's Knot was initially the 'Solomon Choir and Orchestra', which took its name from George Frideric Handel's eponymous oratorio. This had long been one of Jonathan Sells' favourite pieces and was the one he founded the group to perform (though they had to get into the swing of things with a Messiah or two first). Hunting for a logo, we discovered Solomon's famous knot, which we thought provided a neat representation of the bond between choir and orchestra. When they reformed theirselves as a collective, we realised that the knot - which is actually nothing of the kind but rather two interweaving loops - perfectly reflected our new structure, so we tied everything together and adopted it as our name.
Like the singers and the instrumentalists, the interweaving loops of Solomon's Knot are inextricably linked, just as our players work very hard on the 'text' of their individual lines, and the singers on communicating as if part of a string quartet. Together we work on a unity of articulation and expression, matching colour, and of course making the interdependence (bordering on telepathy!) work, without which performances such as the chamber Messiah simply would not be possible. |
