AAM in the press

Latest concert review

Monteverdi and contemporaries with Jonathan Cohen at Wigmore Hall, London (April 2012)

"...Doubtless, though, this excitement was due in a large part to these performers themselves. The Academy of Ancient Music is a period-instrument band that radiates pure enjoyment in its music-making: as unfussy, unpretentious and devoid-of-cobwebs a bunch of historical performance buffs as is likely to be found anywhere in the world. This essential spirit was communicated directly upon their entrance; hardly had their chairs been filled that we were launched into the joyous polyphony of Falconieri’s Ciaccona in G major, featuring a brilliant dialogue between virtuosic violinists Pavlo Beznosiuk and Bojan Čičić..."

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Latest recording review

Handel's Trio Sonatas Opp.2 & 5

“The interplay between the AAM is Baroque chamber-playing of the very highest order: sincerely conversational, emotive and finely nuanced. Egarr and Crouch are an outstanding continuo team, providing attentive yet uncluttered support to the two upper instruments. Brown and Beznosiuk play together with touching eloquence.”

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Latest feature

James Gilchrist on Mozart and the AAM (June 2011)

"The period-instrument movement has been with us for some time now – AAM is in its fourth decade and I think the two schools have really cross-fertilised one another. It’s rare nowadays to hear Baroque music played on a modern instrument without a better understanding of phrase and shape, and similarly I think that the earlier music ensembles have mellowed with age. There’s less of a ‘pickled-in-aspic’ reverence for the music and much more of a visceral engagement with it. The AAM has a great history of playing Classical music on Classical instruments and Richard Egarr never wants to play things with a straight bat – he enjoys quirkiness and surprises."

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