De Profundis & Eamonn Dougan
Biography De Profundis & Eamonn Dougan
De Profundis
Founded by Mark Dourish in 2011, De Profundis is a male-voice early music ensemble based in Cambridge, UK, which focusses exclusively on Renaissance church music from continental Europe.
It has long been known that the choirs of continental churches and chapels in the 16th and 17th centuries were entirely male ensembles where the top musical line was sung by falsettists or boys, (and, latterly, castrati) or a combination of these. The next line down was sung by high tenors. Given the personnel, the music was sung at a lower pitch than we are used to with today’s female-led choirs. In founding De Profundis, Mark took the historical choirs as his model (although ruling out using castrati). It was his hope that performing the music at lower pitch, and using the voice types that would have been expected at the time, would achieve a sound that was closer to what the composer had in mind than what is offered by most performing groups today.
There are no other semi-professional or professional choirs that exclusively perform this repertoire and perform it in this way, and certainly none that uses amateurs in its ranks. As the distinguished musicologist Hugh Keyte has stated, “De Profundis is a choir that needed to be founded.” The members of the choir are hand-picked and include some of the best amateur and young professional singers in the South-East of England.
Another distinguishing feature of how the group works is that they do not have a fixed musical director, but instead bring in expert conductors for specific projects. They limit themselves entirely to the finest early music conductors in the world. Past and future directors include Andrew Parrott, Andrew Carwood, David Skinner, Robert Hollingworth and Eamonn Dougan.
In 2014 the group performed and recorded the complete salvageable works of Bernardino de Ribera (maestro at Ávila cathedral and early teacher of Tomás Luis de Victoria). The disc was released the following year on Hyperion Records. The group later took their Ribera programme to the El Greco Music Festival in Toledo. Their second CD, sacred music by Sebastián de Vivanco, was released in 2018, and was highly praised in Gramophone magazine and on BBC Radio 3’s Record Review programme. It won 5 stars in Diapason, France’s leading classical music journal, and was listed as one of the Discs of the Year in El Páis. In 2019 the choir undertook their second Spanish tour, performing in Ávila and Salamanca cathedrals, and at the International Music Festival at Las Navas del Marqués. Their third CD, featuring music by Juan Esquivel, was released in Spring 2020, to warm reviews on radio, online and in print. They are now engaged in a 12-year project to perform and record the complete masses and Magnificats of the great Spanish Renaissance composer Cristóbal de Morales.
Eamonn Dougan
read music at New College, Oxford, before continuing his vocal and conducting studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He now pursues a busy schedule working as both singer and conductor.
He is the first Associate Conductor of the world renowned vocal ensemble The Sixteen and has directed the ensemble to considerable acclaim at concert halls and festivals across England and Europe, including performances at the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, King’s Place and his debut at the Concertgebouw, Holland.
Eamonn is Principal Guest Conductor of The National Youth Choir of Great Britain and Choral Director of Britten Sinfonia Voices. He is a regular Guest Conductor with Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir, Poland, the Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid and the St. Endellion Festival Chorus & Orchestra.
As a soloist Eamonn has sung with The Academy of Ancient Music, The Gabrieli Consort, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra de la Comunidad, Madrid, and the Orchestra of The Sixteen under conductors including Edward Higginbottom, Nicholas Kramer, Paul McCreesh, Jeffrey Skidmore and Harry Christophers.
His solo recordings include Bach’s St John Passion and St Matthew Passion, Handel’s Messiah and Brahms’ Requiem in its two-piano version as well as motets by Giovanni Grillo with His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, and premiere recordings of Cecilia MacDowell’s Stabat Mater and Arvo Pärt’s Von Angesicht zu Angesicht. He has appeared on disc and the concert platform throughout the world with many of Britain’s leading ensembles and is a member of I Fagiolini.
