Soprano Deborah Roberts spent a lifetime enriching generations of singers on both sides of the Atlantic
This article was first published in the January 2025 issue of EMAg, the Magazine of Early Music America
Music, in so many ways, is about community. We sing and play in ensembles, we gather as an audience for concerts, we find like-minded people to share our musical loves. In the first years of the pandemic, the world mourned the loss of a familiar kind of community, while forging new ones: online streaming concerts, performing together apart via click tracks and layering tools, bonding over video chats. Even the idea of “early music” is predicated, in part, on community, since the exploration of older repertoires forgotten or ignored requires communities of knowledge and of specialized practice.
As something far from mainstream, early music turns fans into friends. An event like the Amherst Early Music Festival brings together students and players of Medieval through Baroque music from all over the world to learn and perform. Both the summer festival and the virtual weekend workshops are filled with the joyous sounds of dear friends greeting each other. But in order to turn fans into friends, one must first cultivate the fans. In the U.K., a series such as the Brighton Early Music Festival provides workshops and concerts for the local communities and also partners with schools and local establishments to educate and entertain alike. The creation of community first requires connection.
These thoughts come to mind at the news of the recent passing of a pivotal member of the early-music community. Deborah Roberts (1952-2024) found her love of Renaissance music quite early on, studying with the renowned David Munrow as an undergraduate. She was known to many as a longtime member of the Tallis Scholars, with whom she toured and recorded for over 25 years, performing in over a thousand concerts and singing the famous soaring top line of the Allegri Miserere at least 285 times, according to Peter Phillips. She was a regular tutor for the Tallis Scholars Summer Schools in the U.S., bringing her expertise and enthusiasm to generations of singers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Roberts’ creative vision stretched beyond choral singing. She founded and directed the all-female ensemble Musica Secreta in the early 1990s to focus specifically on repertoire for female musicians of the 15th through 17th centuries. She co-founded the Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF), deliberately creating a place of grassroots participation and mentorship to up-and-coming musicians. What started in 2002 by Roberts and soprano Clare Norburn has grown to be one of the most important festivals in Britain. As at Amherst, the ethos of the festival is finding community between amateurs and professionals, although in Brighton the participants are mostly local residents who enjoy year-long engagement, sometimes in unlikely places such as pubs and public parks.
In 2007, Roberts launched BREMF Live, which both showcased young artists and provided training for aspiring arts administrators, two of whom (soprano Hannah Ely and recorder player Olwen Foulkes) have now taken over as co-directors of BREMF itself. The scheme has launched some of the finest vocal ensembles on the touring circuit, including the Gesualdo Six and the Marian Consort. BREMF Live musicians can also be seen in showcases and pub gigs, sometimes with local jazz musicians, swapping improvisation techniques and vibes.
In BREMF, Roberts aimed to break down some of the barriers that the phrase “early music” represents, constantly forging new connections between historical repertoires and modern art forms — as, for example, in her recreation of the famous 1589 Florentine Intermedii with circus performers and aerial dancers. She was also passionate about engaging with music from beyond Europe, bringing classical South Asian and African musicians into dialogue with the BREMF audience. Her constant drive to engage the local community in this new musical world was hugely successful. She worked tirelessly with city youth choirs and music classes in local elementary schools, and cultivated strong relationships with community choirs who then became part of the greater early-music community themselves.
Connection to each other as a community, and connection outward into the community, is what keeps early music thriving. Deborah Roberts was a catalyst for care in community, and while she is rightfully mourned for her legacy within the worlds of early music, she will be most missed by those who had the privilege to call her friend.
Karen M. Cook is associate professor of music history at the University of Hartford. She specializes in late-medieval music theory and notation, focusing on developments in rhythmic duration. She also maintains a primary interest in musical medievalism in contemporary media, particularly video games.
Laurie Stras is professor of music at the University of Southampton and co-directs Musica Secreta, researching and performing 16th-century music as it would have been performed by female musicians in courts and convents. She is author of Women and Music in Sixteenth-Century Ferrara (Cambridge Univ. Press).
