BENJAMIN BAGBY
BIO'S & PRESS

Mr. Bagby comes as close to holding hundreds of people in a spell as ever a man has... That is much too rare an experience in theater.

The New York Times

Benjamin Bagby is descended from a Germanic clan which emigrated from Jutland to northern England in ca. 630, from where his branch of the family emigrated to the colony of Virginia almost a millennium later. Following 321 years of subsequent family wanderings, he was born on the shores of the Great Lakes, and twelve years later was captivated by Beowulf.

Several years after moving back to Europe in 1974 he founded – together with the late Barbara Thornton – the ensemble for medieval music, Sequentia, which was based in Cologne, Germany, for 25 years. Both Mr. Bagby and Sequentia are now based in Paris.

In addition to his activities as singer, harper and director of Sequentia, Benjamin Bagby writes about performance practice and teaches widely in Europe and North America. He is currently on the faculty of the Sorbonne University in Paris, where he teaches in the master’s program for medieval music performance practice.

In addition to his work with Beowulf, Mr. Bagby and Sequentia have produced two CDs of musical reconstructions from the medieval Icelandic Edda, the most recent of which, ‘The Rheingold Curse’, was also staged by Ping Chong. A more recent CD, ‘Lost Songs of a Rheinland Harper’, explores Latin and German song in the period around the year 1000.

A DVD production of Mr. Bagby’s ‘Beowulf’ performance, filmed by Stellan Olsson in Sweden, became available in summer 2006. It contains numerous extra features, including interviews with noted Anglo-Saxonists and the performer.

Recent Press 
from Benjamin Bagby’s performances of 'Beowulf' at the Edinburgh International Festival (August, 2007)

"…but when Benjamin Bagby speaks it is as if a thousand years have disappeared. I was sceptical about the pleasures of hearing 100 minutes of this ancient epic told in the original Anglo-Saxon with English surtitles. But something odd happens as Bagby begins to speak, chewing on some words as if they are meat or gristle, launching others like mournful songs. Suddenly you are caught up in the hypnotic rhythms of the story.
…this evening is a triumphant demonstration of the power of storytelling and our deep-seated need to share stories.
Part of the evening's power is that it suggests the concerns and characteristics of humans have not changed all that much.
I can't help feeling that the tale would be much better enjoyed around a roaring fire in a pub, but Bagby nonetheless holds you gripped, and his story seems urgently alive."


Guardian Unlimited (Manchester), August 20, 2007

"Benjamin Bagby is an extraordinary performer who provides an extraordinary evening's entertainment. Glazed in candlelight and accompanied by his six-string harp, he recreates the role of the scop, a mediaeval storyteller who could perform epics of up to six hours long or more for the entertainment of the town. The tale is told in its original guttural and rich sounds, and often Bagby breaks into a hybrid of song and recitation. The harp flutters around its six notes whipping up suspense and lulling pensively around the words, in an altogether entrancing combination. Aside from the feat which Bagby achieves in memorising the archaic rhythms and unfamiliar sounds of the language, he is a captivating storyteller who moulds each word like a carefully carved stone."

The British Theatre Guide (London), August, 2007

"Yet the truth is that Bagby's performance repays close attention with such a rich series of echoes and resonances that it's impossible, by the end of the evening, to avoid the feeling that this is a vital, if ancient, piece of popular entertainment, rich in everyday wisdom, thrilling acts of violence, sensational narrative power, and the kind of flexible, shifting relationship between words and music associated today with genres such as rap and hip-hop. … there's no escaping the sense that this great poem is one of the historic cornerstones of our culture, as rich as any of the other great myths in this year's Festival programme in its sense of humankind struggling for survival in a capricious or indifferent universe. And Bagby's performance is not only a technical tour de force, but a shining labour of love for the great story it tells, and for the original sound of its telling."

The Scotsman (Edinburgh), 21 Aug 2007