Phantasm

Phantasm, occasionally rendered in all capitals as PHANTASM, ranks among the foremost viol consorts worldwide, distinguished above all by an expansive discography that surveys nearly the entire traditional repertoire of the form as well as supplementary works. Drawn from multiple countries, the players have occupied significant university residencies in England and have appeared in concerts on several continents.

Laurence Dreyfus, a performer on the viol and musicologist, founded the ensemble in 1994 and continues to serve as its director. Core membership has exhibited notable continuity, with the original participants—Jonathan Manson on tenor viol, Emilia Benjamin on treble and tenor viols, and Markku Luolajan-Mikkola on bass viol—still active alongside the later addition of Heidi Gröger on viola da gamba. Emeritus players Mikko Perkola and Wendy Gillespie retain links to the group, while further musicians are engaged as required by individual programs. Appearances have taken place in Istanbul, Helsinki, and Tokyo, throughout the United States and Britain, and three times at London’s Wigmore Hall during the 2017-2018 season; European early-music festivals likewise count the consort among their regular guests. In 2005 Phantasm became consort-in-residence at the University of Oxford, a role renewed in 2010 at Magdalen College, Oxford; the administrative base transferred to Berlin in 2015, the city in which Dreyfus resides.

More than twenty recordings have been issued, beginning with the 1995 Simax album devoted to Henry Purcell’s Complete Fantasies for Viols. Later projects appeared on Avie, Channel Classics, and additional labels, with a sustained association with Linn Records commencing in 2009. Releases have encompassed the principal English composers for viols—John Dowland, John Jenkins, and Christopher Tye—while also extending beyond that corpus; two albums of Bach keyboard works transcribed for viol consort were released in 2020 and 2021.