This page: Christopher Monk • Jeremy West • Keith Rogers • Dick Earle • Nicholas Perry • Kathryn Rogers
“One of the most striking improvements recently in Early Music instrumental playing has been in the brass department”. The magazine Music & Musicians said this of the performing group His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts following a concert at the London Banqueting House in Whitehall. The Christopher Monk workshops are proud to have been at the forefront of this development since the first stages of early music’s revival on original instruments in the 1950’s.
Christopher Monk was amongst the first to make reconstructions of the cornett (or cornetto), the highly regarded virtuoso wind instrument whose top players commanded higher fees than any others in the early seventeenth century. Monk made the instrument easily available to enthusiasts by manufacturing reliable reconstructions in resin which were (and continue to be) excellent instruments for getting started. He put cornetts in the hands of the late David Munrow and, largely through Munrow’s Early Music Consort of London, the cornetto began to regain its former popularity. It is now played at amateur and professional levels across the world from New Zealand to New York, heard with increasing frequency at major music festivals and enjoys excellent and increasing representation on recordings.
Following Christopher Monk’s sudden death in 1991, the instrument making concern was taken over by Jeremy West, one of the world’s leading cornett players. By then not only were the Monk workshops making cornetts, but also mute cornetts, tenor cornetts and the whole serpent family from the soprano (known affectionately as the worm) to the great bass (or anaconda), along with all their mouthpieces. The workshops were relocated from rural England to new premises in London, and in partnership with craftsman Keith Rogers, instrument manufacture continues today in the same Monk tradition.
The resin cornett was undoubtedly Christopher Monk’s most important single contribution to the world of early music. This instrument inspired and encouraged many potentially good and keen players to get started and, at the workshops today, 15 of these instruments are manufactured and sold every month. An estimated 4500 resin cornetts are in circulation worldwide. The resin instrument is very good not only for beginners but is also often to be found in use by professional players.
In addition to the cornetts and serpents, and resulting from a successful collaboration with the leading baroque oboe maker and player, Dick Earle, Christopher Monk Instruments now make copies of period oboes, as well as oboes d’amore and oboes da caccia.
Christopher Monk is universally regarded as the impulse behind the revival of the cornett in this century. It is largely as a result of his work, which began in the early 1950’s, that so much cornetto playing is to be heard in concerts and recordings today. By constructing instruments in resin, based on 17th Century originals, and making them easily available as well as affordable, Christopher opened up a whole world of interest to anybody who cared to dabble. He also made instruments in wood, covering the whole family of cornetts and serpents, and these instruments were distributed worldwide; his name became synonymous with early music brass. His enthusiasm for these instruments was contagious; his influence encouraged many young players, some of whom went on to become today’s leading professionals. Following Christopher’s death in 1991, the Historic Brass Society established the Christopher Monk Prize in his memory for outstanding contribution to the field of early music brass on original instruments.
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Jeremy West was able, like many others before and since, to get started playing the cornett as a result of Christopher Monk’s resin instrument, which, then as now, was quickly available and affordable. He was inspired largely by the music of Giovanni Gabrieli and a desire to play it on original instruments rather than on modern brass, and was encouraged from the beginning by the late Christopher Monk. During the years which have elapsed since those first steps, Jeremy West has made his living from the instrument, appearing in more than 30 countries across the world as well as on some 60 major recordings. He is a founder member of the renowned and pioneering ensemble His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, and is principal wind player in Paul McCreesh’s Gabrieli Consort and Robert King's The King's Consort. He is professor in the early music and brass departments of the Royal College of Music in London. Jeremy took over the Monk workshops in 1991 and has since endeavoured to continue this great man’s pioneering work in partnership with craftsman Keith Rogers. At the Monk workshops Jeremy researches and develops the wooden cornetti, which he does in close collaboration with Keith, and with support from Nicholas Perry and Jamie Savan; he tunes and tests every one of the resin cornetti personally; and he tunes, tests and plays the wooden instruments, often giving them an airing at a professional concert or recording prior to their eventual despatch to the customer. Jeremy has one son, Lewis, and lives with him and partner Susan Smith in County Durham, northern England.
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Keith Rogers is not only a superb craftsman but also has the benefit of holding a first class honours degree in music! Although a first class degree is not essential to hold down a job at the Christopher Monk workshops, it is nevertheless a useful training for getting around the multitude of problems which full-time work with curious and lesser-known instruments turns up. After a career in teaching, culminating in his position as Director of Music in two leading Northern Ireland grammar schools, Keith joined the Christopher Monk workshops in April 1992. Here, building on his skills and experience as a recorder maker, he worked in close collaboration with Jeremy West, exploring the world of cornetts and serpents, expanding his knowledge of the instruments and their peculiar ways, as well as adapting his instrument-making skills and research interests. The partnership which he formed with Jeremy in 1994 continues as the backbone of the workshop. Keith lives in Norfolk, where he now has the workshop and from where all our serpents and historical oboes are despatched. He is married to Kathryn and they have four daughters and six grandchildren.
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Dick Earle is well known as a top performer on and maker of Historical Oboes. He has performed with many of Europe’s leading period orchestras and his instruments are played by professional and amateur players across the world. He joined the Christopher Monk team in 1993, effectively granting the workshop license to make his oboes. The collaboration is very close: Dick does the research and development; tests the models (invariably to commercial recording level) before they are released to the public; tunes, makes and fits reeds; and thoroughly checks each instrument before it is allowed into the hands of the customer. His quality control is frighteningly strict and the oboes are appropriately well received, wherever in the world they go. Dick was born and grew up in the USA, is married to Alison Bury, leader of the English Baroque Soloists, and lives in Sussex in southern England.
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Nicholas Perry is a cornett and general renaissance wind instrument player. At Christopher Monk Instruments he does much towards the development of treble and tenor cornetts and their mouthpieces, and he tests the serpents too. Nicholas does all the leather work on our cornetti, serpents and oboes d'amore.
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Kathryn Rogers makes up the resin cornetts, from the mixing of the component chemicals through to their preparation for leathering, in our Norkolk workshops; she also packs and ships our serpents and oboes.