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Red Priest is the only early music group in the world to have been compared in the press to the Rolling Stones, Jackson Pollock, the Marx Brothers, Spike Jones and the Cirque du Soleil. This extraordinary acoustic foursome has been described by music critics as “visionary and heretical,” “outrageous yet compulsive,” “wholly irreverent and highly enlightened,” “completely wild and deeply imaginative,” with a “red-hot wicked sense of humour” and a “break-all-rules, rock-chamber concert approach to early music.”
Founded in 1997, and named after the red-headed priest, Antonio Vivaldi, Red Priest has given over 1000 sell-out concerts in many of the world’s most prestigious festivals, including the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Moscow December Nights Festival, Schwetzingen Festival, Prague Spring Festival, Ravinia Festival, Bermuda Festival, and in most European countries, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and throughout North and Central America. The group has been the subject of hour-long TV profiles for NHK (Japan) and ITV (UK) - the latter for the prestigious South Bank Show in 2005.
In 2008 Red Priest launched its own record label, which is now the home for all of the recordings of the ensemble and its members, and has attracted much attention in the music press worldwide. Gramophone said of the group’s ‘Handel in the Wind’ CD ‘Quite brilliant… some of the most extraordinary instrumental playing you’re likely to hear’, whilst their iconic recording of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ was hailed in the same publication as one of the four all-time best recordings of the work. Other releases have included a swashbuckling collection entitled ‘Pirates of the Baroque’, the group’s all-Bach blockbuster, ‘Johann, I'm Only Dancing’, and ‘The Baroque Bohemians’, which surprised the major labels by reaching No.1 in the UK Specialist Classical Chart in 2017.
THE MEMBERS


Julia Bishop discovered her love of early music during her studies at the Royal College of Music when she first heard the Baroque orchestra directed by Catherine Mackintosh and knew from then that she would make the Baroque violin her speciality. Thirty-five years later Julia is recognised as one of the most colourful exponents of the instrument. She has toured the world extensively and made numerous recordings with all the period instrument orchestras in the UK including the London Classical Players, the Hanover Band, the Academy of Ancient Music, the English Concert, with whom she was a member for six years, and as leader and soloist with the Gabrieli Consort and Players for five years. A founder member of Red Priest, Julia stepped back from touring in 2015 for family reasons, and now returns to the ensemble for the 2023 season. In her time away from the group she has become increasingly popular for her lively and informative teaching on workshops and courses around the UK and at the University of Chichester Conservatoire.

