James Johnstone BA

James Johnstone pursues a busy and varied career as a soloist and chamber musician. His first solo CD - ‘John Blow’s Anthology‘ - was critically acclaimed and in 1999 his CD of keyboard works by Orlando Gibbons on ASV received the prestigious Deutsche Schallplattenkritik prize. In 1998 he recorded some Bach organ solos for the Gabrieli Consort and Players’ Epiphany Mass’ on CD on Deutsche Grammophon, and Spring 2001 saw the release of a Bach recital recorded on the historic Christian Müller organ in the Waalse Kerk, Amsterdam. Future projects include recitals in El Escorial, Iceland (Skalholt Musicfestival) and Antwerp (Festival Laus Polyphoniae) as well as CD recordings of Ercole Pasquini (to be released Spring 2002) and Peeter Cornet, both for ASV, and Françoise Couperin’s Concert Royaux with Rachel Brown, flute, for Metronome.

In recent years he has given solo recitals in Great Britain, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, Israel and Colombia. He has performed throughout Europe and The United States with most of the established period instrument ensembles in England including The Academy of Ancient Music, Collegium Musicum 90, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Kings Consort, The English Concert and The Gabrieli Consort and Players.

He directs his own chamber group, Ciaccona, and is a Professor of early keyboards at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and Trinity College of Music in London.

Since Autumn 2001 he has been a core member of the chamber ensemble Florilegium with whom he makes CDs of Telemann and Haydn, and also tours the UK, Europe and North and South America.