Paul O'Dette

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 2, 1954, Paul O’Dette is a lute player, conductor, teacher, and musicologist who specializes in early music (medieval, Renaissance, and baroque). Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, he learned to play electric guitar and played in a rock band. His musical focus changed when he studied transcriptions of early music and began playing the lute, one of the earliest stringed instruments in history. He also studied the archilute, the theorbo, the mandolin and the baroque guitar. Beginning in 1965, Paul O’Dette collaborated with the Studio der Frühen Musik ensemble in Munich. He then studied medieval and Renaissance music from 1973 to 1976. He released his first solo album, The English Lute, in 1978. He became a lute teacher and the director of the early music department at the Eastman School of Music in New York in 1976. Paul O’Dette has participated in over a hundred recordings for a series of labels including Astrée, Hyperion and Harmonia Mundi. His catalog of acclaimed recordings includes Dowland: Musicke for the Lute (1984) and other Dowland anthologies: Complete Lute Works, Volumes 1-5 (1997), The Art of the Lute (2009), and My Favorite Dowland (2014). Throughout his career, Paul O’Dette has collaborated with Jordi Savall, Gustav Leonhardt, William Christie, Christopher Hogwood, Andrew Parrott, Nicholas McGegan and the ensembles The Parley of Instruments, The Musicians of Swanne Alley, Tafelmusik, The King's Noyse, The Harp Consort, The Purcell Quartet and Tragicomedia. He has been associated with the Boston Early Music Festival, which was created in 1980. He took over the artistic direction of the orchestra and the choir in 2007 and produced operas by Lully, Conradi, Sebastiani, Charpentier, Blow, Monteverdi, Handel, Steffani, Pergolesi, Campra and Delalande.

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