About Us

Armonico Consort is a critically acclaimed choir, instrumental ensemble and music charity.  It is renowned for inspiring audiences through passionate performances, providing imaginative singing opportunities for young people and helping people living with dementia through the power of music.

Armonico Consort began life in 2001, set up by Christopher Monks and a group of university colleagues with a shared passion for music from the Renaissance to Baroque, coupled with the imagination to find new and unusual ways to present concerts. Audiences seemed to love their engaging and innovative approach, and most concerts in the first years sold out.

Although their horizons have broadened to encompass contemporary repertoire and new commissions, Armonico’s signature concerts continue to feature choral masterpieces, rarely heard gems and new musical discoveries from the Renaissance and Baroque, performed by some of the world’s finest singers and period instrument players  These include Supersize Polyphony – 40 and 60-part works by Tallis and Striggio performed surrounding the audience.  Armonico Consort has become the world’s leading authority on the choral works of Francesco Scarlatti – a forgotten member of the famous dynasty – with critically acclaimed premiere performances and recordings described by le Figaro as “the classical music find of the century”.

Armonico’s education programme – AC Academy – was fundamental from the outset and now encompasses after-school choirs, a Scholars scheme, and an in-school Choir Creation programme which has established almost 300 choirs and trained teachers as choir leaders, reaching over 250,000 young people.  Their outreach work has taken them to Kenya, where they created choirs and trained leaders for street children in Nairobi, and to Mexico where they worked with students at Fundación Azteca and trained choral conductors across the country.

The mental and physical well-being benefits of singing are well established, and new research suggests Baroque music is extremely effective at unlocking memories of those affected by dementia.  With specialist training from the Alzheimer’s Society, Armonico’s Communities programme now includes singing sessions in care homes, and its first community choir – Warwick Memory Singers – has been joined by two more in Solihull and Coventry in 2025.

Highlights of their 25th Anniversary season include taking the acclaimed Supersize Polyphony mega concerts to cathedrals across the UK, a performance at Wigmore Hall and a concert tour of the Forgotten Scarlatti project premiere recording of Francesco Scarlatti’s oratorio Daniele , a landmark performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion to mark its 300th anniversary, and the continuation of international collaborations with concert partners in Spain and Italy, as well as with Fundación Azteca in Mexico.