I Fagiolini

The vocal ensemble I Fagiolini has long fused disciplined interpretations of Renaissance and modern works with fresh approaches to staging and filming those repertoires.

Formed at Oxford University in 1986, the ensemble adopted a name that translates as “The Green Beans,” a choice the members themselves have observed “has been misspelt, mispronounced, and misunderstood throughout the world.” Early recognition arrived when the group captured first prize at the 1988 U.K. Early Music Network Young Artists’ Competition, after which an intensive calendar of concerts and recordings began that has remained uninterrupted.

Roughly fifty performances take place each year, among them regular appearances at the BBC Proms and engagements that have carried the ensemble to the United States, the Far East, and South Africa. In the latter country the singers joined the SDASA Chorale of Soweto to create the largely improvised album Simunye, later touring with the choir across both Africa and Europe; numerous overseas projects have been supported by the British Council. The ensemble’s first commercial release, Insalata, appeared on the Metronome label in 1994.

A more cinematic venture followed in 2007, when I Fagiolini supplied the soundtrack for the experimental film The Full Monteverdi, a drama in which six couples dissolve their relationships simultaneously inside a single restaurant, drawing its text and musical fabric from Monteverdi’s fourth book of madrigals. The resulting score was issued on both CD and DVD by Naxos. Central to the group’s activity has been solo vocal repertoire from the Renaissance and present day, with particular emphasis on Italian and English music of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Recording affiliations have included Chandos and, beginning with a 2011 account of Alessandro Striggio’s Mass in 40 Parts, Decca; collaborators have encompassed the viol consort Fretwork, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Harmony of Nations, and the BBC Concert Orchestra. A 2017 release, Monteverdi: The Other Vespers, assembled a fresh Vespers liturgy from pieces by Monteverdi and his contemporaries. The ensemble transferred to the Coro label in 2019 for Leonardo: Shaping the Invisible, an exploration of musical echoes of Leonardo da Vinci’s thought, and returned to that imprint in 2022 with an album devoted to madrigalist John Wilbye before issuing a recording of Orazio Benevoli’s Missa Tu es Petrus the following year.