The Royal Wind Music

The Royal Wind Music is a thirteen-member renaissance recorder consort based in Amsterdam and founded by Paul Leenhouts in June 1997. The members, originally from Australia, Austria, England, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain, all studied at the Amsterdam Conservatoire. The ensemble specializes in Dutch, English, German, Spanish and Italian instrumental music written between 1520 and 1640. This unique repertoire offers a huge variety of ensemble works written by the most celebrated composers of the time. The collection of renaissance recorders of the ensemble was built by Adriana Breukink (The Netherlands) and Bob Marvin (Canada) after the instruments by the Bassano family preserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. The set ranges from the twelve-inch sopranino to the sub-contrabass measuring over ten feet. The sub-contrabass, a recently designed model built after Renaissance principles, was made in cooperation between Paul Leenhouts, Winfried Hackl and Adriana Breukink.

This week I saw in Amsterdam a performance of the Royal Wind Music, an ensemble of thirteen young recorder players under the leadership of their guru Paul Leenhouts. They played music from the Renaissance including works by Sweelinck, Schuyt, and Desprez; court music that lets you dream of archaic landscapes. Breathless I sat listening to this warm sound that once halted my ambitions for teaching.

Paul Witteman, De Volkskrant
Oktober 29, 2006

In season 2009-2010 The Royal Wind Music has been invited to perform in the series 'Het Zondagochtend Concert' at the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam). This coming season the ensemble will perform at the Trigonale Festival in Austria, the Berliner Tage für Alte Musik and several other early music festivals in Austria, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands.

The Royal Wind Music has toured in the USA, Spain, France, Germany, England, Ireland, Austria, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, and has received wide acclaim for their precision, expressiveness and spirit. The ensemble appeared, amongst others, at the Boston Early Music Festival, the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, the Greenwich International Early Music Festival and the Festival 'From Distant Lands' at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. In 2006 the ensemble was awarded the Noorderkerk Prize during the finals of the Vriendenkrans Competition at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. In the same year they received subsidy from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds to purchase new instruments. In the period 2009-2010 the ensemble receives financial support from the Dutch Fund for the Performing Arts (NFPK).

The first CD of The Royal Wind Music, Alla Dolce Ombra, was recorded in Seville in April 2002 for the Spanish label Lindoro. It includes poetic music by Italian and Austro-German masters. In addition to the recorder consort, this recording features a special combination of plucked instruments: psaltery (Elisabeth Seitz), lute (Israel Golani), Spanish and Italian harps (Johanna Seitz and Gunnhildur Einarsdóttir). In 2007 a second recording was released. A Noble Noyse of Musicke includes a selection of vocal and instrumental master works of the English Renaissance, performed by the recorder consort and guest musicians Christopher Field (countertenor), Israel Golani (lute), Matthias Havinga (organ) and Johan Hofmann (virginal). The Flute-Heaven of the Gods, with polyphonic settings of melodies included in 17th century solo recorder collections, appeared in December 2009. A fourth CD of Spanish Renaissance music, Del Canto Figurado, has already been recorded and will be released in 2010.