Founded in 2015 by Swiss conductor and trombonist Lorenzo Ghirlanda, the German-based Vox Orchester is made up of around twenty young professional musicians from ten different countries, who have all grown up learning instrumental techniques and modes of playing characteristics of baroque music. Lorenzo Ghirlanda’s credo is that listening – and playing – ancient music is like discovering “new music”, because the young musicians’ fervour safeguards them from any form of routine or preconception. And it is precisely in this spirit that the Vox Orchester’s musicians author this album dedicated to Purcell and Locke’s music written for Shakespeare’s plays. While his texts have long conquered the entire planet, English music has often remained confined within the island’s borders. Recorded in 2018 in the auditorium of Radiotelevisione svizzera in Lugano, this music is the work of two English composers, prior to Handel’s arrival in London. Ghirlanda and his musicians’ interpretation aims to highlight the international nature of baroque music at that time, and more precisely the Italian influence Monteverdi, and later Corelli, had on European productions. © François Hudry/Qobuz