“The finest viol consort on the planet” (The London Evening Standard), Fretwork will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2026. In these last decades, it has explored the core repertory of great English consort music from Taverner to Purcell, made classic recordings against which others are judged, and commissioned an entirely new repertory of music for viols.

The list of composers Fretwork has encouraged to create new works is a roll call of the most prominent musicians of our time: George Benjamin, Michael Nyman, Sir John Tavener, Gavin Bryars, Elvis Costello, Alexander Goehr, John Woolrich, Orlando Gough, Sally Beamish, Tan Dun, Barry Guy, Thea Musgrave, John Paul Jones, Nico Muhly, Sir James MacMillan, and many others.

It has expanded its repertoire to include music from more than 500 years, from the first printed consort music in Venice in 1501 to music written this year and in between—everything that can be played on a consort of viols: Byrd and Schubert, Purcell and Shostakovich, Gibbons and Britten, and Dowland and Grieg.

Recently it has performed in the Lammermuir and Music@Malling festivals and at Wigmore Hall with Tenebrae. In 2025, they commemorate the anniversary of the sudden and untimely death of Orlando Gibbons and celebrate the 90th birthday of Arvo Pärt with concerts and recordings.

While it formerly flew all over the globe, the group has now committed to reducing its carbon footprint by travelling in Europe only by train or electric cars. Recently, it has toured to Germany, France, Spain, Austria, and Slovenia in its two Tesla vehicles. The future of Fretwork sees many exciting projects based on the thrilling juxtaposition of old and new: making the experience of old music new and bringing the sensibilities of past ages to bear on contemporary music.

An esteemed interpreter of Handel, Iestyn Davies begins the 2024–2025 season singing Didymus in Theodoraat Teatro Real Madrid and with Chicago’s Music of the Baroque. He then delves into David in Saul at Glyndebourne, Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno and Dixit Dominus with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Emmanuelle Haïm, Messiah with Les Violons du Roy and Bernard Labadie, and arias on tour with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Robin Ticciati.

Mr. Davies tours Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea with Cappella Mediterranea and Leonardo García Alarcón in Europe, and J. C. Bach, Scheidt, Schein, Buxtehude, and more with Fretwork in the US and Canada.

In recent seasons, he sang Bertarido in Rodelinda on tour to the US and Asia with Harry Bicket and The English Concert, made his role debut at the Opéra national de Paris as Tolomeo in Giulio Cesare, sang Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with The Atlanta Opera and at Garsington Opera, and the Boy in George Benjamin’s Written on Skin with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In August, he made his Australian debut singing J. S. Bach and Arvo Pärt in an extensive solo tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra
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Mr. Davies appeared for a season on Broadway in a revival of his West End theater project Farinelli and the Kingwith Mark Rylance, which received an Olivier Award nomination. Fascinated by blending traditional theater with musical performance, hehas also developed a new work with director Netia Jones, An Anatomy of Melancholy.

A celebrated recitalist with repertoire ranging from Dowland to Clapton, he has twice been awarded the Gramophone Recital Award. In 2017, he won the Gramophone Baroque Vocal Award and was awarded an MBE by the Queen for his services to music.

Silas Wollston was a chorister at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, where John Scott encouraged him to learn the organ; he subsequently took up organ scholarship at Trinity College Cambridge. After university, he studied composition with Robin Holloway and harpsichord with Jill Severs in London and Frederick Haas in Brussels. He is a member of the London Handel Players, The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble,and the 16th- and17th-century chamber music ensemble In Echo. He also plays regularly with Fretwork and has duo partnerships with violinist Adrian Butterfield (Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord on SOMM) and cornettist Gawain Glenton (The Myth of Venice on Delphian). 

From 1999 to 2016, he was a member of the English Baroque Soloists, playing a major role in Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach cantata cycle in 2000 as a soloist, continuo player, and assistant conductor. He also has much experience as a choral director, working as director of music at Queens’ College Cambridge between 2011 and 2015. He is a council member of The Handel Institute, and he has published research on the string music of Locke and Purcell and on Handel’s compositional process.