Paul O'Dette

Paul O'Dette commands the lute with a level of mastery that few players attain. Through his work he established the technical benchmarks and interpretive approaches that guide today's early-music specialists. His contributions also brought historical insight, authentic technique, and expressive freedom into balanced alignment within the historically informed performance movement. "I remember when I first started playing the lute," O'Dette once recalled, "the common perception of Renaissance music was that it was kind of pre-expression -- that people didn't use dynamics, they didn't use tone colors... [But] the more we've learned, we've realized that in fact all of these expressive devices were being used throughout the 16th century." Much of the renewed emphasis on these expressive resources in contemporary performance can be traced to his efforts.

Born February 2, 1954, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, O'Dette first played electric guitar in a rock ensemble. Dissatisfied with inconsistent teaching methods in that field, he followed a recommendation to study with a classical guitar instructor in search of greater discipline. Assigned Renaissance lute works transcribed for guitar, he became captivated by the instrument's timbres and began collecting authentic examples. His holdings eventually grew beyond twenty instruments, encompassing lute, archlute, chitarrone, and Baroque guitar. He pursued early-music training at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, worked on medieval and Renaissance performance practice with Thomas Binkley and Studio der frühen Musik, studied lute with Eugen Dombois, and took guitar lessons from Christopher Parkening and Michael Lorimer. In 1976 he was appointed director of early music at the Eastman School of Music.

O'Dette has participated in more than one hundred recordings, both as soloist and alongside Nigel Rogers, Christopher Hogwood, Jordi Savall, Trevor Pinnock, and Gustav Leonhardt. His discs have appeared on Harmonia Mundi, CPO, EMI Classics, and Hyperion. He received multiple Record of the Year nominations for the 1995 complete edition of John Dowland's lute music, while the 1996 release of Purcell songs with Sylvia McNair earned a Grammy. Seven Grammy nominations in total include a 2014 Best Opera Recording award for Charpentier: La Descente d'Orphée aux Enfers and a 2019 Best Opera Recording nomination for Charpentier: Les Arts Florissants; Les Plaisirs de Versailles. In 2020 he and Stephen Stubbs directed the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra on a CPO recording of Handel's Almira.

O'Dette's playing is often characterized as profoundly human. Central to his approach is sensitivity to the ethnic and dance-derived elements embedded in the repertory; the corresponding gestures, even when stylized, shape the contour and phrasing of his lines. He also invokes contemporary treatises: "All of the 16th century sources say that the best instrumentalists are those who can make you believe you are listening to words -- that the best instrumental playing strives to imitate the voice in every way possible." This historically grounded outlook, combined with technical precision, has transformed his performances from acts of preservation into acts of creative renewal.