Hathor Consort

Promoting instrumental chamber music from the Renaissance and early Baroque, the Belgium-based Hathor Consort has also ventured into contemporary music for viol consort and crossed into the Indian Hindustani classical genre, dhrupad, inspired by founder and artistic director Romina Lischka's background as a dhrupad vocalist and viola da gamba player. In 2024, Lischka led the Hathor Consort on the album In My Heart of Hearts: Music in Shakespeare's Plays. Lischka founded the Hathor Consort in 2012 and takes its name from Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of the sky, women, fertility, and love. The group made its recording debut in 2014 with the album John Dowland: Lachrimae or Seaven Teares on the Fuga Libera label. The Hathor Consort is a regular guest at European festivals, including the Utrecht Early Music Festival, the York Early Music Festival, and the Musique Antique Festival Brugge, and has appeared at such major venues as London's Wigmore Hall and the Konzerthaus in Vienna. The group's recording output picked up in the late 2010s and early 2020s, issuing an album devoted to Alfonso Ferrabosco the Younger (2018), Animam Gementem Cano (2020, featuring music by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, František Ignác Antonín Tůma, and others), and Heinrich Albert's Pumpkin Hut (2021). The latter featured frequent collaborator soprano Dorothee Mields. Beyond its Euro-centric focus, the Hathor Consort also incorporates and blends classical music from other regions, especially the Northern Indian genre of dhrupad, one of Lischka's other specialties. To that end, it issued Dhrupad Fantasia in 2022, which featured the dhrupad singing and music of Uday Bhawalkar and Lischka, and new arrangements of composers such as Tobias Hume and Jacob van Eyck. Lischka and the Hathor Consort were joined by soprano Hannah Morrison and countertenor Marnix De Cat for the album In My Heart of Hearts: Music in Shakespeare's Plays in 2024. ~ Keith Finke, Rovi