How did the Hilliard Ensemble start?

RCC: I’m not a founder-member, but David James’ story is that there was a group of young singers from St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, some of whom were still studying, who liked to meet up for dinner, enjoying good food and good wine. One evening they thought “Why don’t we form our own group?”. There were other ensembles around, but nothing quite like the Hilliard, which began with alto David James, who is still with us, tenor Paul Elliott, baritone Paul Hillier and bass Errol Girdlestone, who only stayed for a year as it became clear that his musical interests lay elsewhere. He’s now conducting opera in France. Within two years they took on a second tenor, Leigh Nixon, and Hillier became the bass, so the line-up changed to alto, tenor, tenor, bass which it has been ever since.

Have the members changed much since then?

SH: No, there have only been five changes.
RCC: There was a big change in 1984 when both tenors resigned, and Hillier and James invited John Potter and myself to join. Then in 1990 Paul Hillier left to take up a teaching job in California, which is when Gordon Jones came in. Steven’s our newest arrival.
SH: I was effectively succeeding John Potter, though for a while there were five of us which meant we could explore some of the five-voice repertoire, and I could cover for Potter who was teaching at York University. Five changes in 30 years isn’t bad!

Is this actually your 30th anniversary season?

RCC: Yes, so we are organising a little festival at London’s Wigmore Hall next spring to celebrate. The first public concert was in December 1973, so effectively we began in the spring of 1974.

Do you see yourselves as belonging to a specifically English tradition, or as something different?

RCC: Our background is in churches, cathedrals and college chapels. That’s where we all had our basic training, learning our sight-reading skills and getting used to listening to each other rather than following a conductor. We never have a conductor, except for large-scale pieces where we are singing with an orchestra. We’re musically democratic, and discuss interpretation and the way in which we do things among ourselves.
SH: Much of the repertoire we do now is a long way from that English tradition.

Your origin, as a group of people meeting for dinner and music, sounds very much like the eighteenth-century glee-singing clubs, and David James is a member of the only one of these to survive. Are you interested in that tradition as a group?