Elizabeth Kenny is one of Europe’s leading lute players. Her playing has been described as “incandescent” (Music and Vision), “radical” (The Independent on Sunday) and “indecently beautiful” (Toronto Post). She has an extensive discography of collaborations with chamber ensembles across Europe and the USA, and her own repertoire interests have led to critically acclaimed recordings of solo music from the ML Lute Book, and songs by Lawes, Purcell and Dowland. In 2011 she was nominated for the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards for best instrumentalist, and became an artistic advisor to the York Early Music Festival. Her own ensemble Theatre of the Ayre’s most recent release (Linn), The Masque of Moments, converted surprising numbers of critics to the little-known glories of the English Masque. She has a growing commitment to new repertoire for her instruments, and has recorded theorbo works by James MacMillan, Benjamin Oliver, and Nico Muhly on her most recent solo CD, Ars Longa (Linn), described as a “triumph” and named as the Instrumental Choice by BBC Music Magazine.
Elizabeth is Dean of Students and Professor of Lute at the Royal Academy of Music.
Elizabeth Kenny’s playing throughout is all that one could ask for; it is hard to imagine a better case being made for either the value of the theorbo’s traditional repertoire or its modern possibilities.
MusicWeb International, Sept 2019
…the peerless lutenist Elizabeth Kenny
The Guardian, July 2017
