Christopher Monk

He was prominent in the mid-20th century revival of interest in Renaissance period wind instruments, particularly the cornett and serpent, and was involved in the historically informed performance movement.

He mastered the virtuoso cornett parts of Italian Renaissance composer Claudio Monteverdi's choral work, the Vespers of 1610, which were regarded at the time as impossible to play.

[1] In 1967, he formed the London Serpent Trio, with English players Andrew van der Beek and Alan Lumsden, performing new works and historical arrangements, both serious and whimsical, throughout Europe and North America.

[3] In 1968 he devised a method of making cornetts out of a wood-resin composite material, which was considerably cheaper than carving them from wooden pieces and bonding them with leather.

After his death in 1991, the workshop passed to his long-time collaborator and friend, English cornettist Jeremy West.