Richard Savage | Bass

Richard Savage sings bass in the Consort and been with the group nearly since its beginnings in the 1980s. Read on to find out more about his experience.

How did you get involved in Gabrieli Consort & Players?
I joined the Consort in the 80’s when the incumbent bass moved into the opera world. In addition to many musical memories, happily it has also led to long lasting friendships including with Paul McCreesh, his wife and family. Our endeavours in the early days were mainly in early music, and centred around Paul’s great gift for creative reconstructions. It was most satisfying to see these appear on highly successful recordings, which raised the Consort’s profile leading to invitations worldwide to perform a much wider range of repertoire - now encompassing most major choral works. My two personal highlights would have to be performing Bach’s B Minor Mass in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig and Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers in St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, both using solo voices.

How did you get into singing?
I studied a science subject at University which in those days prevented me from applying for a choral scholarship so my early choral experience was in the mixed-voice Schola Cantorum of Oxford alongside Emma Kirkby, Andrew Parrott and others who have gone on to very successful musical careers. We were lucky enough to work with Britten, Tippett, Bernstein and others so the learning curve for students was steep. On moving to London, I joined the Monteverdi Choir of which I was a member for 32 years but I find the wider range of repertoire and ever-evolving interpretation in the Gabrieli’s far more to my taste! In parallel with professional singing, I developed a travel company that caters to the needs of travelling musicians, and their audiences, worldwide.

Tell us a story!
Morale on Gabrieli projects is always high. But good planning doesn’t always remove the scope for “incidents”. My favourite was the chant procession at the start of a “Venetian Coronation” performance in the odd surroundings of the theatre which is the old Vatican cinema, used for concerts by the Accademia St Caecilia in Rome. Processing through the audience towards the stage where Paul was already standing with a beatific aura, he looked down to see that the necessary stairs had been removed between rehearsal and concert. History doesn’t relate whether his expletives were audible or only visible but, as the giggling procession tried to shuffle its way on to the stage through side doors, one turned out to be open and the other locked. Picture the scene for yourselves…