John Constable

Having completed his training under Harold Craxton at the Royal Academy of Music, John Constable began his professional life on the music staff of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Since 1984 he has acted as principal harpsichordist of the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and, from the ensemble’s inception, has occupied the same post at the piano with the London Sinfonietta, the country’s foremost group devoted to new music. Appearances as soloist have taken him before conductors including Simon Rattle, Hans Werner Henze, David Atherton and Oliver Knussen. He has supplied continuo harpsichord for Mozart opera recordings directed by Colin Davis, Neville Marriner, Simon Rattle and Georg Solti. At the Aldeburgh Festival he joined soprano Lucy Shelton for the first performance of Elliott Carter’s Of Challenge and of Love. Recitals have included the BBC’s New British Music and Lutoslawski weekends at the Barbican and the American Independents Festival at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. In 2000 he appeared as soloist in the Boulez at 75 Festival; the following year he participated in the BBC’s Schnittke Festival at the Barbican. During 1998 he performed the Elliott Carter Double Concerto with the London Sinfonietta at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and with the ASKO Ensemble at the Concertgebouw. Chamber-music and song discs issued on Argo, Decca, EMI, Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, Hänssler and Capriccio feature a viola-and-piano programme with Paul Silverthorne, Liszt songs with Philip Langridge, Warlock songs sung by Adrian Thompson and Christopher Maltman, Fauré and Ravel songs with Felicity Palmer, Haydn Lieder recorded with Dame Janet Baker, and A Spanish Songbook performed with Jill Gomez. Frequent partnership with Lucy Shelton has produced recordings of Messiaen’s Harawi and the complete songs of Elliott Carter and Stravinsky. Constable teaches as a professor at the Royal College of Music, London, and holds a fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music.