About
The Brabant Ensemble
The Brabant Ensemble was founded in 1998 to explore the neglected repertory of sacred music in the period 1520-1560.
The group takes its name from the Duchy of Brabant, an area of the Low Countries that now forms part of the southern Netherlands and northern Belgium. Many of the greatest composers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries emanated from Brabant and its neighbouring areas, controlled at that time by the Dukes of Burgundy; it is the music of such composers as Nicolas Gombert, Orlande de Lassus and Josquin Desprez that forms the core of the group's repertoire.
Stephen Rice
Stephen Rice (musical director) is a performer and musicologist based in Oxford, where he recently completed a doctorate on the motets of Nicolas Gombert (c.1495-c.1557). In addition to the Brabant Ensemble he also runs the New Chamber Opera Studio, and is Director of Music at the church of St Mary Magdalen in Oxford. In Autumn 2004 he was appointed a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford.
More information and publications will soon be available at www.sterence.com