Elizabeth Kenny

Elizabeth Kenny is one of Europe’s leading lute players. Her playing has been described as “incandescent” (Music and Vision), “radical” (The Independent) and “indecently beautiful” (Toronto Post). In twenty years of touring she has played with many of the world’s best period instrument groups and experienced many different approaches to music making. She has an extensive discography of collaborations with ensembles across Europe and the USA, and her own repertoire interests have led to critically acclaimed recordings of solo music from the ML Lute Book, and songs by Lawes, Purcell and Dowland. She is currently Professor of Lute and Theorbo and Dean of Students at the Royal Academy of Music.

She has given premiere performances of solo and chamber pieces by James MacMillan, Benjamin Oliver, Heiner Goebbels and Rachel Stott.  In June 2019 she premiered Nico Muhly’s 'Berceuse for solo theorbo', which was written for her in 2018, and features on her CD 'Ars longa: Old and new music for theorbo' for Linn records which was nominated in the 2020 BBC Music Magazine Awards in the Instrumental category.

In June 2020 she gave a live broadcast recital with Iestyn Davies at Wigmore Hall, and again for the York Early Music Festival. In 2021/22, Elizabeth performed a series of concerts with the newly formed Benedetti Baroque Orchestra, coinciding with a Decca Classics album release, and also played at the Tetbury Music Festival, London International Festival of Early Music, the Trigonale Festival der Alten Musik in Austria, the Ludlow English Song Weekend, and the Newbury Spring Festival.

This season, she returns to the Trigonale Festival, performs recital programme ‘Cubaroque’ with Nicholas Mulroy and Toby Carr at the Lammermuir Festival, and a programme with Mark Padmore at the Oxford Lieder Festival.

She also continues her collaboration with Isabelle Faust, Kristian Bezuidenhout and Kristin von der Goltz in a programme of Bach, Biber and Westhoff across Europe.