Formed in 1988 by the Early Music Centre of Great Britain, the Orlando Consort is established as one of Europe’s most important vocal ensembles. Their work successfully combines captivating entertainment and fresh scholarly insight: the unique imagination and originality of their programming together with their superb vocal skills has marked the Consort out as the outstanding leaders of their field. In recent times the Consort has also attracted praise for their highly imaginative programming of contemporary music and jazz, and for their outstanding education projects that are specifically designed to involve amateur musicians of all ages (from 9 upwards) and abilities.

Their impressive discography for Saydisc, Metronome, Linn, Deutsche Grammophon and Harmonia Mundi USA includes a collection of music by John Dunstaple and ‘The Call of the Phoenix’, which were selected as Early Music CDs of the Year by Gramophone Magazine in 1996 and 2003 respectively; their CDs of music by Compère, Machaut, Ockeghem, Josquin, ‘Popes and Anti-Popes’, ‘Saracen and Dove’ and ‘Passion’ have also all been short-listed. Their 2008 release of Machaut’s ‘Messe de Notre Dame’ and ‘Scattered Rhymes’, an outstanding new work by the young British composer Tarik O’Regan and featuring the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, was short-listed for a BBC Music Magazine Award. They have recently begun a new long-term project to record all the polyphonic songs of Guillaume de Machaut with Hyperion Records and the first CD in this series was selected by the New York Times as one of the Top 10 classical recordings of 2013.

The Consort has performed at many of Britain’s top festivals and have made numerous visits to France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, the USA and Canada, South America, Singapore, Japan, Greece, Russia, Austria, Slovenia, Portugal and Spain. They have been artists-in-residence at a number of universities, including Bangor and Durham, and frequently hold workshop sessions at universities and music conservatoires around the world. Other recent highlights include their return to New York’s Carnegie Hall and performances of their ‘Mantra’ project, exploring historic Portuguese and Goan music with the brilliant tabla player Kuljit Bhamra, in Singapore.

Their programme Voices Appeared, silent cinema and medieval music, is taking them to several tours throughout Europe and the USA. They made it in Spain in 2016 for FEMÁS, Festival de Música Antigua de Sevilla.

Kuljit Bhamra is one of the most inspiring and influential musicians, composers and record producers on the British Asian music scene. A pioneer of the worldwide Bhangra phenomenon, he combined traditional Indian rhythms with western instruments and multi-track recording techniques, thus transforming Punjabi music into a new dance-floor sound. Since the age of 18 Kuljit has composed and produced over two thousand songs and is responsible for the rise to fame of numerous Bhangra and Bollywood stars.

Kuljit has recently been appointed Artistic Director for the Society Of The Promotion Of New Music and is responsible for programming events during their upcoming season. As part of this venture, he will be collaborating with Alex Wilson to produce a new Latin Bhangra dance project and also with various orchestras to create exciting new works based on Indian raga scales.

Son of the late composer and co-founder of Indo-Jazz Fusions John Mayer, Jonathan began musical training at an early age and by the age of 16 had found the instrument that would be his life, the sitar.

Jonathan studied composition from his father and later with Andrew Downes at the Birmingham Conservatoire where he gained a B.Mus (Hons) at the Birmingham Conservatoire studying both sitar and composition. His career so far has seen him play with artists such as Dave Stewart, The Smith String Quartet, The Bingham String Quartet, John Wilson, Bombay Dub Orchestra, Sarah Brightman, I Musici Fiamminghi Orchestra and Sir Paul McCartney.

Jonathan’s compositions have been performed by Erich Gruenburg, Joji Hattori, his father’s band Indo-Jazz Fusions and he has written for many library music companies.

Shahid Khan, born and living in London, comes from a family of renowned tabla players and classical singers from the ‘Patiala Gharana’ based in Pakistan. He started singing from the age of three and from the age of ten started receiving singing lessons from Pandit Vishwa Prakash and later from Rauf Mehndi; two teachers to whom he remains eternally grateful. Shahid’s Guru from the age of 16 was and remains Ustad Hussain Baksh Gulu, who he credits with taking him to new heights, and his biggest influence has been Ustad Nusret Fateh Ali Khan. He is a former winner of the Asian Starsearch competition and has recently featured on a debut CD, Yaaro.