Chris Orton
As a soloist, Chris explores music ranging from Sephardi Song through to the classic Baroque works for recorder in solo and chamber settings.
Chris works as a duo with recorder player Tamar Lalo. Their programme, Diálogos del Tiempo, presents works from Machaut, Lassus and Telemann to Imogen Holst, Nicola LeFanu and Rodion Shchedrin.
With Windu, the Spanish recorder quartet and music theatre group, Chris performs Renaissance and Baroque repertoire entirely from memory in a fully theatrical format; their programme, ¡Bailamos! bringing a physical, dramatic dimension to early music performance that sets it apart from traditional concert expectations. His training in Dalcroze Eurhythmics feeds directly into this approach, shaping how he thinks about gesture and the body in performance.
He has performed and taught across Israel, Lithuania, Australia, Singapore and throughout Europe, and has given guest performances with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and early music ensemble Ex Cathedra. Early in his career, he won 1st Prize at the Moeck/SRP International Solo Recorder Competition and received a £20,000 BBC Performing Arts Fund Bursary.
Chris is a sought-after conductor, directing the Baroque orchestra at the NORVIS summer school, the Junior RNCM orchestras, adult recorder orchestras, and the National Youth Recorder Orchestra, of which he is Musical Director.
Biography
Chris Orton is a recorder player and conductor whose work moves between historical repertoire and contemporary performance — from Renaissance and Baroque music staged theatrically with Windu, to new commissions written specifically for him by composers including Thomas Simaku, Michal Pawelek and Sören Sieg.
As a soloist, Chris explores music ranging from Sephardi Song through to the classic Baroque works for recorder in solo and chamber settings.
Chris works as a duo with recorder player Tamar Lalo. Their programme, Diálogos del Tiempo, presents works from Machaut, Lassus and Telemann to Imogen Holst, Nicola LeFanu and Rodion Shchedrin.
With Windu, the Spanish recorder quartet and music theatre group, Chris performs Renaissance and Baroque repertoire entirely from memory in a fully theatrical format; their programme, ¡Bailamos! bringing a physical, dramatic dimension to early music performance that sets it apart from traditional concert expectations. His training in Dalcroze Eurhythmics feeds directly into this approach, shaping how he thinks about gesture and the body in performance.
He has performed and taught across Israel, Lithuania, Australia, Singapore and throughout Europe, and has given guest performances with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and early music ensemble Ex Cathedra. Early in his career, he won 1st Prize at the Moeck/SRP International Solo Recorder Competition and received a £20,000 BBC Performing Arts Fund Bursary.
Chris is a sought-after conductor, directing the Baroque orchestra at the NORVIS summer school, the Junior RNCM orchestras, adult recorder orchestras, and the National Youth Recorder Orchestra, of which he is Musical Director.
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