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Temple players

 Joseph Crouch

‘An expert period orchestra’ Opera Magazine

Founded by James Vivian and Joseph Crouch in 2006, The Temple Players pursue musical activities on several fronts, from joining the Temple Church Choir in providing music for services, concerts and recordings, to a series of small-scale cantata concerts with solo singers like Robin Blaze and Claire Booth, to a re-enactment of ‘An Evening at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens’, to oratorios and critically-acclaimed opera productions (‘beautifully detailed and wonderfully macabre’ - The Times, ‘the dances were bewitchingly played… I have not heard a Dido [and Aeneas] more stylish, eloquent and moving’ - Opera Magazine).

The group is flexible in size as befits its range of activities, from chamber trio to oratorio orchestra. Joseph Crouch, principal cellist with both The Academy of Ancient Music and The English Concert, leads the band alongside Persephone Gibbs, ‘a rising star of the baroque violin’ (Time Out). The Temple Players have appeared on BBC Radio 3 and will feature alongside The Temple Choir on their forthcoming CD to be released on the Signum label in Spring 2010.

In the future the group hopes to continue its exposition of composers associated with The Temple Church, following on from its survey of the concertos of John Stanley who, in addition to enjoying the rare privilege of G.F. Handel’s admiration, was organist to the Society of the Inner Temple for more than half of the eighteenth century!

Persephone Gibbs (photo: Lewis Lyons)

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