Josie and the Emeralds
Josie and the Emeralds is a Sydney early-music ensemble founded in 2011, uniting soprano with viol consort in Renaissance song and new Australian writing for the viol.
Their debut, The Emerald Leopard (TP233), sets English Renaissance songs by Gibbons, Dowland and Morley beside original works and arrangements for soprano and viols. A second disc, The Emerald Phoenix (TP271), turns to transformation and Australian histories in music for soprano, viols and theorbo.
The group is known for programmes that move between the pre-Baroque and the present, and for the blend of clear early-music singing with the dark, close-voiced sound of the viols.
Josie and the Emeralds is featured on the following titles
The Emerald Phoenix
In 2014 Tall Poppies released The Emerald Leopard (TP233), with Brooke Green’s music for soprano and viols. The Emerald Phoenix presents her recent works for soprano, viols and theorbo, featuring Josie Ryan and bass violist Laura Vaughan.
The Emerald Leopard
Josie and the Emeralds pair acclaimed early-music soprano Josie Ryan with some of Australia’s finest viol players, the Emerald City Viols. Founded in 2011, the group is known for sophisticated performances and inventive programmes of Renaissance and contemporary works, including compositions and arrangements by director Brooke Green.
Members of Josie and the Emeralds
Laura Vaughan
Melbourne-based viola da gamba specialist Laura Vaughan is a dynamic and well-recognised member of the early music movement in Australia.
Daniel Yeadon
Daniel Yeadon has a worldwide career as a cellist and viola da gamba player; his repertoire ranges from renaissance to contemporary. In addition to the Marais Project his regular chamber music collaborators in Australia include Neal Peres Da Costa, Genevieve Lacey, Ironwood, Romanza, Kammer, Elision and The Collective.
Fiona Ziegler
Fiona Ziegler Fiona began her violin and piano studies at the age of five with her mother, Sydney violinist, Eva Kelly. At the Conservatorium High School she studied violin with Christopher Kimber and Harry Curby, piano with Nancy Salas and cello with Lois Simpson, attending master classes with Valery Klimov, Igor Ozim and the Quartetto Beethoven di Roma.
Catherine Upex
Catherine Upex is an Australian cellist and viola da gamba player. Trained in Sydney, she is a long-standing member of The Marais Project and plays viol with Josie and the Emeralds.
Alice Chance
Alice Chance is an Australian composer, conductor, arranger and lyricist. Her works are heard in concert halls from the Sydney Opera House and City Recital Hall Angel Place to the Kennedy Centre, and in cathedrals in Sydney, California and New York.
Siobhán Stagg
With a voice of “ravishing tone” and “radiant” stage presence (The Age), Australian soprano Siobhan Stagg is a rising star on the brink of an international career.
Anthea Cottee
Anthea Cottee is a viol and viola da gamba player whose work moves between Renaissance consort music and contemporary Australian chamber repertoire.
Josie Ryan
Josie Ryan is an Australian soprano specialising in early vocal music. After training in Sydney and at The Hague, and a decade performing in Europe, she returned to Sydney as a concert and ensemble soloist.
Brooke Green
Brooke Green writes and arranges for soprano and viols, folding Renaissance song into new consort music that carries Dorothy Porter, boatpeople laments and forgotten Australian histories into dark, close-voiced shimmer.