Europa Galante

Askonas Holt first worked with Europa Galante, the marvellous Italian baroque ensemble, and their director Fabio Biondi for their performance at a Late Night Prom in August 2000 with Ian Bostridge as soloist. This relationship was extended in the summer of 2001 when we arranged a short US tour for the group which included concerts at the Ravinia, Lanaudiere and Mostly Mozart Festivals. Europa Galante returned to the UK in January 2002 for concerts in London, Oxford, Reading, Croydon and Birmingham. Recent highlights have included a hugely successful US premiere of Alessandro Scarlatti's oratorio 'La Santissima Trinita' at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York.

"In the (Vivaldi-like) double bill of conductor and first violin, occasionally also grabbing the viola d’amore, Biondi led the performance with a relentless overall pulse, a nuanced choice of tempi and, most notably, a careful insight into the singers’ needs for breath and action — nowadays not a terribly common feature among opera conductors, whether of period bands or regular pit orchestras. His Europa Galante sounded like a large multi-register theorbo struck by a single hand: an amazing outcome, considering the frequent turnover of instrumentalists within its ranks. Biondi has clearly got a signature sound, one of the most exciting in the early music scene today — to say nothing of his individual prowess on the baroque violin."
Opera Today, October 2007