Tessa Roos (mezzo-soprano) and Peter Croton (lute) have joined forces to create an inter-generational, intercultural duo to explore the riches of 16th and 17th century repertoire from England and Italy. Tessa, from South Africa, is known for the warmth, sweetness and lively expression of her singing and performance; Peter, a Swiss lutenist originally from the USA, combines his improvisational skills with expression founded in rhetorical performance practice.
Their first collaboration involves English lute songs, such as those by John Dowland, and ballad tunes from the 16th and 17th centuries. A classically trained singer, Tessa Roos performs these songs with both touching simplicity and passionate expression. She is a true storyteller, in the tradition of the great folk singers and troubadours of earlier eras. Peter Croton, with a background in jazz guitar and composition, has been described as “a creative musician who wishes to recapture the improvisational and inventive nature of the early lutenists” (Lute Society, UK). Since most early ballad tunes have no pre-existing accompaniments, Peter improvises his own, in addition to creating lute solos based on the tunes. The result of the Roos/Croton duo is at the same time artistic, spontaneous, earthy and poignant.
THERE WERE THREE RAVENS
OLD ENGLISH BALLAD TUNES. Rehearsal Excerpts: Greensleeves, The doleful dance and song of death, There were three ravens, Go from my window, Lord Willoughby, Fortune my foe.
LORD WILLOUGHBY
GREENSLEEVES
Despite strong ties to the life and surroundings of Cape Town, South Africa, mezzo-soprano and choral conductor Tessa Roos moved to Europe in order to focus on Early Music.
Based in Basel, Switzerland, Tessa specialises in Medieval to early Baroque music. She studied with Evelyn Tubb and Anthony Rooley at Schola Cantorum, focusing on English and Italian solo repertoire and madrigals of the 16th and 17th centuries, with subsequent Renaissance studies bringing more attention to earlier repertoires. Tessa has a duo with viola da gambist Mathilde Gomas, working with English songs of circa 1600 for voice and Lyra viol, and is a founding member of vocal ensemble InVocare. They have performed at leading Early Music festivals and worked with pioneer linguist David Crystal on Original Pronunciation of English in the Shakesperean era.
In March 2022 Tessa was one of seven singers in Sequentia’s production of Le Roman de Fauvel at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, directed by Peter Sellars.
Tessa has been working with ensembles such as Vox Luminis(Lionel Meunier), Le Miroir de Musique (Baptiste Romain), Sequentia (Benjamin Bagby), Per-Sonat (Sabine Lutzenberger) and Huelgas Ensemble (Paul van Nevel). She regularly works with the concert series ReRenaissance in Basel and directed a programme of DuFay motets for the series in 2022.
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Award-winning lutenist and romantic-guitarist Peter Croton is an active performer & recording artist as soloist & accompanist who has been teaching lute, romantic guitar, continuo, and historical performance practice at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis since 1989 and the Conservatory of Music in Bern since 1984. In the press he has been called a “lyric poet of the lute” and has been praised for his “breathtaking virtuosity” and “astonishing range of tone colors and dynamics”. His compositions for voice & lute have been described as “challenging and refined... highly suited for inclusion in today's concert repertoire. 2024 saw him performing solo recitals in China, Australia, Austria and Switzerland.
He studied lute and classical guitar with Dr. Loris Chobanian (Oberlin Conservatory of Music) and lute with Eugen Dombois and Hopkinson Smith (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis). He won first prize at the Erwin Bodky Competition for Early Music in Cambridge MA (1984) and has also won prizes at other international competitions. He has recorded numerous CDs, appeared on television and radio as soloist and chamber musician, and has performed at many international festivals. Peter is the author of five books on the subject of lute, guitar and historically inspired performance.
Since 2011, Peter Croton has been included in the Marquis Who's Who in the World, featuring biographies of “the most accomplished men and women from around the world and across all fields of endeavor”. Peter is President of the German Lute Society (Deutsche Lautengesellschaft), and is the initiator & artistic director of BASEL PLUCKS - festival for lute & guitar.
Sample program: Roos & Croton (pdf)
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