Stile Antico: First concert since lockdown. Picture: Marco Borggreve
CAN it be as long as 15 years ago that Stile Antico burst onto the scene by copping the audience prize at this festival’s international competition? Indeed it can.
This crack group of 12 singers, without a conductor, seems to have been part of the festival’s fabric ever since. Certainly it was the perfect choice to bring this year’s online festival to a stunning close.
Breaking The Habit was the punning title of a programme exploring Renaissance music by and for women, many of the former being nuns. Since most belonged to closed orders, there was some affinity between them and our own recent isolation.
The choir stood in a wide circle, facing inwards and exactly distanced, apparently performing for the first time together since lockdown, after a series of Zoom-style rehearsals. Remarkably, the singers went straight into full stride; it was as if they were simply in the middle of the season. Impeccable tuning and a blend that never faltered marked music that showed remarkable breadth of character, both sacred and secular.
Raffaella Aleotti, daughter of the court architect in Ferrara, revealed notable rhythmic flair in two motets she published in 1593, while in her mid-twenties. Two eight-voice motets showing equally nimble counterpoint were the work of Sulpitia Cesis, a nun in Modena, who published them in 1619.
Maddalena Casulana, though not a nun, was the first woman to have madrigals printed; working out of Vicenza, she produced three books – 66 madrigals in all – between 1568 and 1583. Her word-painting and daring harmony combine infectiously: Stile Antico had their measure, in fact a mere two madrigals left us wanting more.
Consone Quartet recording their concert at the empty National Centre for Early Music for the online York Early Music Festival
Finally, another nun from Ferrara, Leonora d’Este, tested the group’s high sopranos in three motets for five female voices. Needless to say, discipline was maintained, to thrilling effect.
The remainder of the programme explored music written for female rulers. Margaret of Austria, who governed the duchy of Burgundy in the early 16th century, commissioned an exceptionally dark, mysterious motet from Pierre de la Rue to commemorate her brother’s death, while herself writing a three-voice piece in both French and Latin.
Music for Queen Mary included John Sheppard’s mighty Gaude, Gaude, Gaude Maria, with several wordless plainsong interludes, delivered with exceptional smoothness. Byrd’s motet for Elizabeth I, O Lord, Make Thy Servant Elizabeth, boasted an exquisitely controlled Amen, kept prayerful. Two madrigals from The Triumphs of Oriana illuminated the spicier side of the Elizabethan court.
Finally, Dialogo and Quodlibet, written last year by Joanna Marsh, contrasted scholarly theorising by the six men with the flightier disruption intended by the six ladies, until finally they agreed to unite and entertain. The style harked back to the Renaissance and fitted wittily into this context.
A lunchtime concert by the Consone Quartet included two of Beethoven’s Op 18 quartets, Nos 1 and 3. I cannot comment on the first since it was disfigured by transmission problems, except to say that it was tackled cautiously and with introspection. The group appeared to abandon this approach in No 3, which was altogether more relaxed, reaching a peak in a finale full of energy and joie de vivre.
The online festival has not been without technical difficulties, but we may be extremely grateful for the huge effort put into it both by the performers and by the Early Music Centre staff. It has lightened everyone’s mood to be able to see music “live” again at long last.
How it looked when watching from home: Lutenist Elizabeth Kenny and countertenor Iestyn Davies performing at the National Centre for Early Music, York, in Thursday’s live streamed concert
IF, like me, you enjoy the arts and sport, you will have rejoiced in a bumper week. First, we had the
Government giving an unprecedented £1.57 billion fillip to the arts, thereby drawing a graceless murmur of thanks from the generally Tory-hating lefties that populate the arts sector.
Then, the cricket season resumed, to the familiar sound of England wickets tumbling. Finally, one of the world’s top three early music festivals, has returned, albeit online and in much-shortened form.
But we must be grateful for small mercies these days. Here we had a bunch of stalwart pros who refused to roll over and succumb to a mere virus. All had travelled to York and recorded musical offerings on the theme of Method and Madness; eight events – three of them talks – over three days.
First out of the blocks, on July 9, was York’s own countertenor Iestyn Davies, partnered by lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, a world-class pairing if ever there were. Their programme was devoted to that master of melancholy, John Dowland. If you want to be modern about it, you can class melancholia as an aspect of mental health. The Elizabethans called it a disease but made light of it too.
Melancholy was something to be enjoyed, even revelled in, and not excluding self-pity. We all know the feeling. Melancholy has been the counterpart in English song – though not the same – to the German Sehnsucht (yearning). Think of all those aching pastorals lamenting the passing of rural idylls, most of which were figments of the imagination anyway. We all enjoy a little angst.
We need not explore the many facets of Dowland’s melancholic psyche any further. Here we were reminded – by a letter he wrote from Nuremberg in 1595 – of his early exile, separated from the country, the queen and the family he loved by having to earn a living abroad, because his Catholic faith disqualified him from acceptance at court. Davies read this and other illuminating texts, mainly of the period, but including Leo Tolstoy and Rose Tremain too, to amplify Dowland’s many moods.
The music was not without technical shortcomings, not by the performers, but the technology: pictures that moved jerkily and occasional breaks in the sound. But a CD would not have been more satisfying.
It was a joy to get back to seeing live performers revelling in their art. Davies delivered reams of easy, liquid tone that underlined Dowland’s incomparable skill as a songwriter. His words were not especially clear, even with a text to hand, but that may have been due to insufficient ‘miking’.
Harpsichord player Steven Devine recording his 2020 York Early Music Festival concert at a deserted National Centre for Early Music in York
Kenny’s pluckings not merely supplied a rhythmic foundation. She improvised magically in her intros and in the space between verses (ritornellos); she also contributed several mood-lightening dances.
It was hard not to feel that we were experiencing Dowland’s songs exactly as they would have sounded 400 years ago, not in a dusty, ancient way, but as a living art as relevant today as Shakespeare. We may remember that Dowland’s Third and Last Booke of Songs was published in 1603, the same year as Hamlet – that arch-melancholic – was first printed.
The last word goes to Dowland himself, from his dedication to Lachrimae, a book of dances: “Pleasant are the tears which music weeps”. Indeed.
Matthew Wadsworth continued the Dowland theme on lute and theorbo at lunchtime on Friday, alongside the music of other contemporaries. There was as a wide a range of moods here as there had been in the songs, with bolder declamation from the long-necked theorbo with its deeper resonance.
Wadsworth flowed fluently over the strings and the close camera work emphasised the music’s intimacy.
During the afternoon, Steven Devine played the second half of Book 1 of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, the preludes and fugues Nos 13-24, on a two-manual Michael Johnson harpsichord built in Fontmell Magna in 1997. He proved a deft exponent, though on such a bright-toned instrument he might not have coupled the manuals quite so frequently. But at least we were able to marvel anew at the breadth of Bach’s ingenuity.
The evening brought in Richard Boothby playing a lyra viol, the smallest of the three kinds of bass viol. He began both halves with music by Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger, an Englishman of Italian descent who was especially prominent at the Jacobean court. Pairs of dances amply contrasted the gentler alman with the altogether friskier coranto, with its skipping rhythms.
Similar pairings from William Lawes and John Jenkins led into two brilliantly virtuosic variations by the little-known William Corkine and ‘divisions’ (variations) on Dowland’s famous Lachrime melody. Boothby introduced his music, which made the whole presentation much more personal.
We may be grateful to all these musicians for their labours in front of an unseen audience. The festival concluded with the ace choral group Stile Antico on Saturday evening. Watch this space for the review.
Oh, you are Orpheus: Alexander Flanagan-Wright and Phil Grainger, one notebook, one guitar, shoes off (out of picture) are here to entertain you “on people’s streets, at their front windows and in parks and gardens”
LIVE theatre is back, all over North Yorkshire, at your invitation.
Step forward York theatre-makers Alexander Flanagan-Wright and Phil Grainger, who are finding new ways of telling stories and creating art and theatre this summer.
As part of the duo’s five-pronged art attack under the banner I’ll Try And See You Sometimes, they are presenting Orpheus – A Hyper Local Tour, a show whose 325 two-hander performances before the Covid curse had taken Alex and Phil across the globe, let alone to Castle Howard.
As of today, announced by Culture Secretary at the Downing Street briefing on Thursday, outdoor performances can return, whether socially distanced theatre, opera, dance or music.
Alex and Phil have been ahead of the Government curve, however, setting I’ll Try And See You Sometimes in motion in mid-June.
“We’re taking Orpheus on an outdoor tour around North Yorkshire’s local lanes, villages, and towns, performing with social distancing in place and abiding by Government guidelines on how many people can meet at any one time,” says Alex.
“The shows can take place on people’s streets, at their front windows and in parks and gardens,” says Phil. “Instead of announcing a show that the public can book tickets for, we’re asking for people to pop on to flanagancollective.com and book a suitable slot and the whole show will be brought to them.”
The I’ll Try And See You Sometimes season is bringing together Wright’s company The Flanagan Collective, Grainger’s Gobbledigook Theatre and industry friends.
“We’re taking theatre and the arts to the people of Yorkshire, keeping spirits up and people connected during these times of social distancing to help combat loneliness, something needed more than ever in the Covid-19 climate,” they say.
“Some of it is hyper local, some of it is spread far further afield, some of it is music, some of it is stories, none of it is digital.”
All the world’s a stage for Orpheus, whether in New York, on the Ouse Cruise boat in York or out in Australia
The duo’s five-hand of analogue works are: Orpheus – A Hyper Local Tour; Oh, To Be So Lonely – A Pen Pal Project; This Story Is For You – A New Story With Guest Illustrators; Half Man, Half Bull – Two Myths Over A Double Album and The Odyssey – An International Adaptation.
Both theatre-makers attended school in rural North Yorkshire, and still live there, five miles apart, Alexander at a converted 17th century corn mill in Stillington, Phil in Easingwold.
Usually, however, they spend most of their time away from home, touring theatre across the globe, but Covid-19 and the lockdown has brought them back to Yorkshire, where they are pooling their skills, experience and creativity.
“When the lockdown hit, we were touring in Australia and about to head to New Zealand,” says Alex. “We’ve been touring our adaptation of Orpheus for a few years now, taking it across the UK, around Australia, New Zealand, Bali and over to New York.”
Alex and Phil made a sister show, Eurydice, created with performers Serena Manteghi and Casey Jay Andrews, and this year added The Gods The Gods The Gods to their repertoire, premiered in Australia.
“All three shows were lined up for UK and international touring for the next 18 months or so, including a season at the Edinburgh Fringe. But obviously that has all changed now,” says Alex.
“I’ve been keeping up with the wider industry conversations – the difficulty in using auditoriums, the need for government assistance, the huge case for our industry to be saved – and we agree with all of it and we’ve also been aware of the need to do something.”
Hence the launch of I’ll Try And See You Sometimes, showing initiative, imagination, an eye for innovation and a need for adventure that marked out writer, director, musician and performer Alex’s best-known work: the Guild of Misrule’s immersive, jazz-age hit show The Great Gatsby that began at a closed York pub.
In a nutshell, he and musician, singer, composer, actor, director and sound designer Phil make and deliver work outside of the usual physical four walls. “We have shaped, created, railed against, built, torn down, raised and radicalised perceptions of what theatre, narrative, storytelling and a relationship with an audience can be,” says Alex.
“We’re now finding ways to keep telling stories. It’s not about re-imagining shows we wanted to do live, in rooms full of hundreds of people and, instead, try and fit them on Zoom.
Phil Grainger in a performance of Orpheus in pre-Coronavirus times
“There are wonderful digital storytellers and artists in the world, but we’re not one of them. So, we’ve come up with a season of analogue work: a season of work where you get tangible things, which seeks to connect people, deliver narratives, and tell stories.”
The quintet of works can be booked in North Yorkshire and accessed regionally, nationally and internationally as the season plays across a various outdoor spaces and will be available to download.
Run by Alex and his sister Abbigail Ollive’s Lonely Arts Club, Oh, To Be So Lonely is a pen pal project, whereby those who sign up will receive a letter saying hello, with a bit of chat and reading, listening and watching recommendations.
“Those who wish for their contact details to be shared with others in the group will have the opportunity to write and share their lockdown experiences with others wanting to reconnect with the community,” says Alex.
This Story Is For You is a “typically sad” new story written by Alex with a soundtrack by Phil and artwork by guest illustrators. “We’ve teamed up with a bunch of pals and asked them to turn the story into a book, and to create unique artworks to go alongside the story,” says Phil. “Audiences will then get the story, the artwork, and the music to keep.”
For the Half Man, Half Bull double album, Alex and Phil have linked up with Ollie Tilney, from The Great Gatsby cast, and Streatham Space Project to retell two ancient Greek myths.
“We’re writing the story of Theseus & The Minotaur and Daedelus & Icarus as a double album release on vinyl, CD and for digital download,” says Phil. “Two stories, told together, made to be listened to.”
The Odyssey – An International Adaptation involves Alex and Phil teaming up with friends in the north, London, Amsterdam, New York, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Wellington to create an adaptation of Homer’s Greek epic poem, told through a series of one-on-one/small-scale encounters.
Those who book a ticket will be told to meet in a certain place at a certain time, to be joined there by a storyteller and or a musician
Details of the full season are available at theflanagancollective.com, where bookings can be made too.
Has notebook, will take bookings: Alexander Flanagan-Wright in Orpheus
Kevin Clifton in his dream role as Scott Hastings in Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom: Now running at the Grand Opera House, York, in November 2021, rather than November 23 to 28 this autumn, directed by Craig Revel Horwood
ALL performances at the Grand Opera House, York, are suspended until September 20 at the earliest “in order to help contain the spread of Covid-19”.
A statement from the Cumberland Street theatre’s owners, the Ambassador Theatre Group, said today: “We apologise for the inconvenience caused but hope you understand, given the exceptional circumstances.”
“We were encouraged to see the Government’s intervention to protect UK culture this week,” it went on. “We continue to work closely with health authorities and look forward to the wonderful re-opening of the Grand Opera House as soon as it is safe and appropriate to do so.
“To this end, we are sorry to confirm that all performances at Ambassador Theatre Group venues have been suspended until Saturday, September 20.
“If you have a booking that has been affected by this suspension, you do not need to do anything. Over the coming weeks, we will contact you directly and will be able to handle your requests and enquiries.”
Shows aplenty have been rearranged, such as Strictly Ballroom, starring Strictly Come Dancing old boy Kevin Clifton (November 15 to 20 2021) and comedy gigs by Ross Noble (Humournoid, January 21 2021) and Jimmy Case (Terribly Funny, April 28 2021).
“We are working with producers to re-schedule as many postponed shows as possible, so please do bear with us,” ATG’s statement said. “If your performance is re-scheduled, your tickets will be automatically moved to the new dates and you will be informed accordingly.
Jimmy Carr: Grand Opera House show moving to next spring
“We have also recently announced new performances, such as The Rolling Stones Story on January 22 2021 and The Simon & Garfunkel Story on April 29. Please book with confidence, knowing that if there are any further suspensions, your new tickets will remain fully valid for further exchanges or refunds.”
ATG added: “Customers booked for performances between August 3 and September 6 will be contacted in the week commencing July 13. Customers booked for remaining performances will be contacted in the week commencing July 20.”
Full credit vouchers valid until December 31 2021, including all fees, or refunds, are available for all cancelled shows. For further details, go to ATGtickets.com/corona.
Nationwide, over the past few months, ATGtickets Customer Service Teams up and down the country have handled the re-scheduling of more than 15,000 performances of plays, musicals, comedy and live music.
“From November 2020 and throughout 2021, we have a wonderful array of productions on sale, everything from pantomime to The Book Of Mormon, Disney’s The Lion King to Jimmy Carr and Derren Brown to We Will Rock You,” said ATG.
“On behalf of all our staff, backstage crews, front-of-house teams, actors, dancers, musicians and the entire British theatre industry, we want to thank you for your support and understanding as we work together to ensure the future success of our industry.
“All of us at ATG are enormously proud to be a small part of British theatre, renowned as the greatest in the world. The arts has inspired, educated, entertained and enriched the lives of audiences for hundreds of years but has never been challenged like this. With your on-going commitment, we believe we can come back faster and stronger than ever before.”
The Joseph Rowntree Theatre building, bathed in “emergency red” when taking part in the #LightItInRed campaign for urgent support for the theatre industry on Monday night
PLANS are afoot for the climax of the Yorkshire’s Got Talent contest to be held at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, rather than online.
The Haxby Road theatre has announced it will “hand over the stage to the contest once it is able to re-open and many performers who will have taken part “virtually” can take centre stage in front of a live audience”.
No date has been set for such a finale, against the background of no easing of the Government’s lockdown strictures on theatres, all having been cast into darkness since mid-March.
Yorkshire’s Got Talent is being run by York teenager Hannah Wakelam, a regular musical theatre performer at the JoRo, in aid of the Art Deco building’s £90,000 Raise the Roof appeal for roof repairs.
Hannah, 19, has signed up three VIP guests to judge the event: Wicked star Laura Pick, from Wakefield, West End regular and cruise ship vocal captain Nathan Lodge, from York, and Ripon vocal coach Amelia Urukalo.
Yorkshire’s Got Talent judge Laura Pick in her West End role as Elphaba in Wicked
Entries are open from now until August 1 for a contest with a £100 prize. “All types of performers are encouraged to enter and to show off what they can do,” says Hannah.
“Whether it’s singing, dancing, playing a musical instrument, performing a circus act, the list is endless.”
The cost of entries is a minimum donation of £5 to the Raise the Roof appeal and no age restrictions apply. “Because of lockdown rules, entrants will be asked to submit a short video of themselves performing their acts,” says Hannah. “The winner will receive £100 and their online performances will be seen right across the Yorkshire area.”
Hannah is hoping that, schedules permitting, the three VIP judges, will be able to attend the climax to her county-wide contest at the JoRo.
Laura Pick was playing Elphaba in Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in the West End until the Covid-19 lockdown. Nathan Lodge, no stranger to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, has many West End credits, complemented by his career as a vocal captain on cruise ships. Vocal coach Amelia Urukal has experience aplenty in judging talent competitions and runs the Upstage Academy performing arts studio in Ripon.
Determined to help the JoRo, Hannah says: “It’s because of my experience on stage at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre that I’m following my dream to be a professional performer.
“I honestly wouldn’t be where I am now without this community venue and all it does for young talent. This contest is just my way of saying ‘thank you’ and I’d love other young performers to learn about the opportunities they can find here.”
Hannah is running a raffle alongside the talent contest and is urging businesses or individuals to consider donating prizes. “All donors will be credited in our publicity,” she says. “The theatre has kicked off the appeal for donations by offering theatre tokens and a framed print of the Art Deco building by artist Elliot Harrison.”
To launch the Raise The Roof campaign, the JoRo has set up a Just Giving page and is encouraging people to “donate even just the amount of a takeaway coffee”. To do so, go to justgiving.com/campaign/Raise-the-Roof.
Full rules and details of how to enter Yorkshire’s Got Talent can be found here:
Cancelled concert: Robert and Alison Gammon called off their March 19 concert as the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown loomed
NO further Dementia Friendly Tea Concerts will take place at St Chad’s Church, Campleshon Road, York, in Covid-19 2020.
Co-organiser Alison Gammon says: “Unfortunately, we have had to take the decision to cancel all the events for the rest of this year. We are very sad about this, but we felt that it was just too risky to continue.
“However, we are hoping to start the concerts again next year. All the musicians that I had booked said that they would be willing to come and play for us another time, so I’ll be organising more concerts as soon as it’s safe to do so.”
Husband and wife Robert and Alison Gammon, on piano and clarinet, were to have played an afternoon programme of Camille Saint-Saens’ Clarinet Sonata and Niels Gade’s Fantasy Pieces, on March 19 but the concert was called off in the week before lockdown was imposed.
“At the time, we were well advanced with the planning for the rest of the year, with The Clementhorpe Piano Trio booked for the next concert on April 16 and only May’s concert to confirm,” says Alison, who runs the Dementia Friendly Tea Concerts with Nick Nightingale.
Roll on 2021 and hopefully the return of afternoon concerts at St Chad’s, followed by tea, coffee and homemade cakes.
“In the meantime, I hope that you are managing to find live music on the radio and online, and I’m looking forward to seeing you all again for music, tea and cake before too long,” says Alison.
Whenever they resume, as ever no charge will apply for these tea concerts, but donations are always welcome. “Any money left over from heating the church and tuning the piano is sent to the Alzheimer’s Society,” says Alison.
“Everyone is welcome at these relaxed events and the concerts provide an opportunity for people who may not be able to attend a formal classical recital to experience live music.”
A socially distant Consone Quartet recording their Breaking The Habit concert at the otherwise empty NCEM for the online 2020 York Early Music Festival
THE 2020 York Early Music Festival will be streamed online from this evening until Saturday.
Replacing the Covid-cancelled Method & Madness-themed live event from July 3 to 11, the revised remote festival now combines performances and talks by a line-up of performers based in England.
The virtual festival will be headlined by York countertenor Iestyn Davies and theorbo player Elizabeth Kenny in a concert streamed live tonight at ncem.co.uk, complemented by performances recorded over the past ten days by Steven Devine, Richard Boothby, Consone Quartet and Matthew Wadsworth.
Stile Antico will close the three-day event with a live concert on Saturday, performed, like all the rest, with no live audience at the National Centre for Early Music, at St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate.
Since the decision was taken to cancel this year’s live festival, under the Coronavirus lockdown, organisers have been working hard behind the scenes to deliver the weekend-long programme of music.
Digital producer Ben Pugh’s technical equipment for recording the Consone Quartet concert for streaming on Saturday afternoon
To bring the online festival together, the NCEM has linked up with digital producer Ben Pugh, who has brought his ubiquitous expertise to the concert recordings and will be on hand, at a distance, to stream the live Davies & Kenny and Stile Antico concerts.
“We’ve purchased more video and sound equipment, so it’s more like a TV studio environment now,” says festival administrative director Dr Delma Tomlin. “It’s fortunate that the NCEM is a big space, being a church building, which will help with social distancing.”
Tonight, at 7.30pm, Davies and Kenny present A Delightful Thing, Music and Readings from a Melancholy Man, combining song and music by Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland with Davies’s extra string to his bow: his rendition of readings and poems by Dowland, Robert Burton, Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, Barnabe Googe, Ben Jonson, William Leighton, Henry Peacham, Leo Tolstoy and Rose Tremain.
“To place John Dowland’s artistic output squarely in the frame of ‘Elizabeth melancholia’ is to strip away a richer layer of biography that lies within his crafted lines of music and words,” says Davies.
“Rather, by embracing the songs and solo lute airs as the expressions of a man seeking to find words to say how we fail, we engage in a dialogue that enriches both us and the artistic subject of John Dowland himself.”
Iestyn Davies: York countertenor opens the virtual 2020 York Early Music Festival tonight in tandem with theorbo player Elizabeth Kenny
Tomorrow, John Bryan begins the day with an illustrated introduction to the festivities at 10.30am, highlighting how each concert is linked by a theme of fantasy. This will be followed at 1pm by lute and theorbo player Matthew Wadsworth playing works by Kapsperger, Piccinini, Dowland and Francesco da Milano, plus Echoes In Air, a piece written specially for him by Laura Snowden.
“In a world where live music is in a very fragile place, I am grateful to have the opportunity to share this programme, while being sensitive to the fact that so many artists and arts organisation are in very difficult circumstances,” says Wadsworth.
“I have put together a programme of some of my favourite 17th century music, ending with a wonderful new piece written for me in 2019 by guitarist and composer Laura Snowden.
“When I was asked in 2019 to give a concert in the 2020 festival, I, along with everybody else, had no idea that we would be facing a pandemic together. As we adjust to a new normal, and start to find our way again, I am ever more convinced that music and the arts are an absolute necessity, not a luxury.”
Matthew Wadsworth and Kate Bennett Wadsworth recording tomorrow’s Echoes In Air concert
Wadsworth continues: “I am reminded how, when I moved abroad for the first time in 1997 to study in The Hague, I felt very lost and out of place.
“Music and the lute were a constant, and I realised I could take this source of security anywhere with me. I feel that same comfort and sense of reassurance today, knowing that live music – that most precious shared listening experience between artist and audience – has a past, present and a future.”
At 3.30pm, harpsichord player Steven Devine performs JS Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Preludes & Fugues, from Book 1: Nos. 13 to 24. At 7.30pm, lyra viol player Richard Boothby plays music by Ferrabosco, Jenkins and Lawes, alongside William Corkine’s virtuoso settings of popular tunes such as Come Live With Me and Be My Love.
The BBC’s New Generation artists Consone Quartet open Saturday’s online programme at 1pm with Beethoven’s String Quartets Opus 18, Nos 2 & No 3.
“Performing Beethoven’s music is both an exciting and an exhausting experience,” says violinist Magdalena Loth-Hill, who plays alongside Agata Daraskaite, violin, Elitsa Bogdanova, viola, and George Ross, cello.
Devine inspiration: Steven Devine at the harpsichord in the stillness of the deserted National Centre for Early Music, recording Bach’s Preludes and Fugues
“The abrupt changes of dynamic, key and direction require the musicians to be alert and adaptable, both musically responsive and elastic in technique. This opus is particularly fascinating because it marks an important turning point in the history of the string quartet.
“It is clearly influenced by the classical form and structure of ‘Papa’ Haydn’s work, yet the listener can sense the winds of change blowing, and a new musical language on the horizon.”
At 3.30pm, York Early Music Festival luminary Peter Seymour, a titan of the York classical music world, will introduce the story behind his recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passion.
The festival closes with vocal ensemble Stile Antico’s 7.30pm programme, Breaking The Habit: Music by and for women in Renaissance Europe, featuring works by Raffaella Aleotti; Sulpitia Cesis; Maddalena Casulana; Pierre de la Rue; Margaret of Austria; Leonora d’Este; Thomas Tallis; John Sheppard; William Byrd; John Taverner; John Bennett and Richard Carlton.
“The 16th century saw an unprecedented number of female rulers,” says Delma, setting up the concert’s premise. “From the powerful Medici women of Italy to the great Tudor queens of England, women across Europe held more power than ever before.
“Many of these monarchs used their patronage to facilitate the production of music of exquisite beauty by the finest composers of the day, extravagant showcases of their power contrasting with intimate and personal compositions.
The recording set-up for Consone Quartet’s York Early Music Festival concert
“The century also saw the first publication of music by female composers, often Italian nuns, whose convents supported musical groups of astonishing ability.”
Drawing attention to BBC Radio 3’s festival broadcasts, Delma says: “As an added treat, Radio 3 is presenting its Early Music Show from the festival on Sunday at 2pm, as we celebrate 35 years of supporting emerging ensembles through the York Early Music International Young Artists Competition.
“Radio 3 then completes our celebrations with two magnificent performances from our archive: The Sixteen, directed by Harry Christophers, on July 14, recorded in York Minster in 2015, and Jordi Savall’s Hesperion XX1, recorded in 2014 and now broadcast again on July 15.”
The NCEM was one of the first arts organisations to stream live concerts online during the Covid-19 crisis, beginning with performances by Steven Devine and The Brabant Ensemble. Since March, the fortnightly series of streamed concerts has reached a worldwide audience of more than 70,000.
It is not too late to book tickets for the latest batch at tickets.ncem.co.uk and boxoffice@ncem.co.uk, with a festival package costing £30, individual concert tickets at £10 each and illustrated talks at £3.50 each.
“At this complicated time, it’s a great joy to be able to share music with our audiences once again,” says Delma. “The digital festival is a first for the NCEM and we look forward to people’s reactions. Whatever else, everyone gets a front row seat!”
“I would also like to thank Arts Council England, City of York Council, JWP Creers, Shepherd Group and Creative Europe for their invaluable support.”
Stile Antico, back in the days when you could share a stairway. Social distancing will prevail at their July 11 concert at the NCEM. Picture: Marco Borggreve
Did you know?
AFTER Saturday’s concert, Stile Antico will stay on at the NCEM for three days of recordings for their Mayflower project, now put back to 2021.
NEWSFLASH!
MARTIN Dreyer’s reviews of tonight’s opening concert by Iestyn Davies and Elizabeth Kenny and Saturday’s closing concert by Stile Antico will run on the CharlesHutchPress website.
The 25 Eboracum Baroque musicians and singers who will perform the Heroic Handel virtual concert
EBORACUM Baroque will present Heroic Handel in a fundraising virtual concert for the York ensemble on July 18.
This 7pm programme of Handel’s music has been recorded and filmed in isolation during lockdown to be premiered on youtube.com/eboracumbaroque and facebook.com/eboracum.baroque.
The concert will feature virtuosic Handel operatic arias from Rinaldo and Giulio Cesare, characterful instrumental music and the concluding magnificent Coronation anthem, Zadok The Priest.
“This is a chance to hear talented young musicians performing Handel’s dazzling music for singers and a full period instrument orchestra,” says founder, director and trumpet player Chris Parsons, a University of York graduate.
Twenty-five Eboracum Baroque musicians have each recorded their individual parts separately from across Britain and Europe before being assembled remotely for this unique performance.
“This is a chance to support young professional musicians in these uncertain times and secure the financial future of Eboracum Baroque, so that we can continue to offer high quality, engaging musical experiences including concerts, recordings and education workshops,” says Chris.
Across lockdown, the ensemble has given a series of virtual concerts featuring repertoire for solo instrumentalists and singers, as well as a Spotlight series focusing on different instruments from the ensemble.
“For Heroic Handel, we’re delighted to be joined by our good friends, York Gin, who will present a segment of the concert all about the gin craze of the 18th century – and some cocktail making too,” says Chris. “Dress up as if you were going to watch the concert live, grab a drink of your choosing and enjoy Handel’s glorious music from the comfort of your own home.”
Eboracum Baroque players perform Vivaldi at York Mansion House
Here Eboracum Baroque trumpet player and director Chris Parsons answers Charles Hutchinson’s questions on remote concerts in lockdown, climaxing with Heroic Handel.
How did the project start?
“Eboracum have been working on virtual projects all through lockdown with our themed virtual concerts and Spotlight concerts, which feature different instruments from the ensemble.
“These were either performed via Zoom live or pre-recorded. They all featured just solo repertoire – and sometimes the performers duetting with themselves with the help of technology.
“But we were really keen to do something a bit bigger and utilise all the great musicians in the ensemble, so our project Heroic Handel was born, featuring 25 musicians all coming together to perform lots of music from opera arias, chamber music and right through to Zadok The Priest for full orchestra and choir.
“The great thing is that it’s been such a fantastic collaborative project between all of the musicians, who have all been so positive and supportive. We’re really keen to keep music going and we’re hoping this will do that.”
Eboracum Baroque’s poster for the Heroic Handel concert
How do you put together a virtual concert recording?
“It’s quite different to a usual concert! The main thing is keeping everyone together, with everyone sending their recordings in separately from wherever they are – mostly all across the UK but some in Serbia and Spain!
“The main thing is a click track and a pair of headphones. I choose the tempo of the piece – Handel wouldn’t have known what a metronome was! – and that is then sent in the form of a click track and the players and singers have to stay exactly in time, so that it can be stuck together using software.
“It’s quite a strange process recording your part all by yourself and not bouncing off the other players/singers. We actually had the cello and harpsichord record their parts first and then people could have some instruments to play along to, along with the click track.
“Quite a new experience for many of us, but one we’ve embraced it if it means we can get to perform together.”
What does the editing require?
“David Sims, another music graduate from the University of York, is the tech whizz who puts it all together. As he put it, his job is ‘sticking it all together and making sure that if people have recorded in their bathroom/garage/box room, he can make it sound like everyone is actually in the same place’!”
As director, how have you selected the programme for the themed concerts and what have been the themes so far?
“Again, quite a collaborative experience with all the musicians involved. As we were all performing completely solo, it was important to choose the right repertoire – and the right instruments.
“As a trumpeter, there’s not really much music that works completely by itself, so I didn’t have too much to play, but there’s lots of solo music for cello, violin, oboe and recorder that worked really well.
“We also had some folk songs sung by John Holland Avery, which worked really nicely unaccompanied.
“The themes have been everything from Baroque Dance music (including teaching the audience how to dance a minuet in their own home); Bach’s Leipzig Coffee House concerts and an Italian theme again with audience participation, teaching an 18th century Venetian gondolier song!”
Eboracum Baroque musicians at Stamford Georgian Festival
How have the Spotlight concerts gone?
“They’ve been great to really show up close our baroque instruments. We’ve done ones for recorder, strings, oboe and trumpet. For the trumpet one, we used technology to combine myself and another trumpeter, so we could do some more repertoire.”
What has been the reaction to the concerts in this union of the baroque and 21st century technology?
“Really positive. I think audiences are so keen to hear music and enjoy seeing the innovation so many ensembles have come up with during this strange time. We’ve found people really enjoy – particularly during March/April time – the Friday lunchtime concert time as something to look forward to in the week.
“It’s allowed us to explore repertoire we might not have done, which is a good thing, I think, to introduce audiences to new pieces as well.”
Heroic Handel is the biggest concert yet. How much planning has it taken and how have you put the programme together?
“Yes, it’s been quite a process bringing everything together, but an exciting one! We began planning this at the start of May, so it’s been a great way to keep musicians busy.
“The main thing has been making sure we get all the tech side of things ready so that everyone knows how to do it. Again, it was quite a collaborative process.
“The great thing about Eboracum is that we’re a very flexible ensemble: one gig might be three musicians and another might be 20 musicians!
“So, I hope this concert will showcase everything Eboracum does. There are pieces in this concert with three players (the Recorder Sonata) and Zadok The Priest has all 25 players playing in it.”
What do you love most about Handel’s music?
“His music has everything! It can be so dramatic – all the grandeur with trumpets and timpani – but also so beautiful and expressive. He can just write a great tune and knows how to make it work for every situation.
“The opera arias you will hear in this concert are pieces that people in England would have heard nothing like till then and I’m sure they must have been blown away by it. He knew how to write for a big occasion too: Zadok The Priest just builds the tension before the glorious entry of the choir and the trumpets – a perfect piece for the coronation of a king.”
Eboracum Baroque chamber musicians at Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire
What’s coming next for Eboracum Baroque?
“This concert is really the culmination of our work in lockdown. We’ll then probably have a bit of breather for the rest of July and most of August as we work on what comes next for us.
“It’s such an uncertain time but we’re hoping we can begin to work together in the same place – probably in a church without an audience – where we can record concerts and then live-stream them.
“Particularly, we want to plan towards Christmas, which is really the time of year that will be decisive financially in how the ensemble proceeds into 2021.”
What are you missing most in lockdown musically?
“Being together in the same room. Can’t wait till we can logistically get back to playing together. Eboracum members are more than just colleagues, we’re all good friends, so we’re missing the social side too.”
How will you feel when Eboracum Baroque can perform together again cheek by jowl?
“It’ll be an amazing feeling, I’m certain of it, probably quite an odd one too, playing with people in the same room again, but it’ll be fantastic, I’m sure of it!
“It will no doubt be a slightly different set-up for a while – including any required distancing – but I think it will really boost morale as well.”
How do you foresee the future for freelance musicians in these desperate times?
“It’s such an uncertain time. I’m ever the optimist that, in time, music will come storming back. The arts will be required even more than ever and having seen all the innovation during this lockdown period, I’m absolutely certain that this creativity will continue – creating new ways to watch concerts, new set-ups for audiences etc.
“For freelancers like myself and many of the Eboracum team, we just hope that venues are given the go-ahead to open and begin to programme concerts again in whatever form is possible.
“It will be a long, hard slog but I know musicians are never tiring and we’ll fight to bring this amazing industry back to happier times.”
Have you discovered anything to the good in lockdown?
“During lockdown my wife and I had our first baby, a baby girl born at the start of April. So, we’ve been kept busy! A silver lining from it all is that I’ve been at home throughout and have been able to spend so much time with our new addition and to help my wife too, so that’s been great but we’re looking forward to slowly having more people around!
“Also, I’ve enjoyed a slightly slower pace of life – even with a new-born – and I think when things do eventually get back to normal, I’d like to try and keep a bit of that…”
Eboracum Baroque director Chris Parsons
THE July 18 concert comprises: Handel’s March from Rinaldo; O The Pleasure Of The Plains from Acis And Galatea; Sibilar Gli Annui d’Aletto from Rinaldo, featuring baritone John Holland Avery; Sonata in B minor, Opus 2 No 1: Andante and Allegro; V’adoro, Pupille from Giulio Cesare, featuring soprano Charlotte Bowden; Recorder Sonata in F major, and Zadok The Priest: Coronation Anthem for George II.
The Eboracum Baroque singers and musicians performing Heroic Handel are:
Eboracum Baroque performing Handel’s Messiah at Senate House, Cambridge
Who areEboracum Baroque?
THIS group of professional singers and classical instrumentalists was formed in 2012 by Chris Parsons at the University of York and the Royal College of Music and has performed across the Britain and Europe, from Senate House, Cambridge, to The Temple Church, London, and Christuskirche, Hannover.
As well as their concert performances, Eboracum Baroque have given fully staged performances of Purcell’s Dido And Aeneas and Handel’s Acis And Galatea.
Performing music from across the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the ensemble has a particular specialism in English music from the 17th and 18th Century.
In January 2015, Eboracum Baroque recorded their first album, funded by the National Trust and Arts Council England, comprising forgotten music by the English Baroque composer Thomas Tudway (1650-1726), recorded at Wimpole Hall, near Cambridge, where Tudway worked from 1714 to 1726.
The ensemble seeks to champion forgotten English composers from the period while still performing many famous works. Their second CD, Sounds Of Suffolk, released in November 2018, features forgotten music from 18th century Suffolk, such as violin sonatas by Joseph Gibbs and music from Ickworth House.
Eboracum Baroque perform at National Trust properties, such as Wimpole Hall, Oxburgh Hall and Canons Ashby, presenting programmes unique to each property’s history.
In December 2015, the group undertook its first major tour abroad with performances of Handel’s Messiah in Münster and Hannover in Germany. A December 2017 tour of Estonia took in concerts of Bach’s Magnificat and Vivaldi’s Magnificat in Tartu and Tallinn, the second being broadcast on Estonian National Radio.
Eboracum Ensemble run an education programme with schools across Britain, such as projects based around Handel’s Water Music and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
They continue to work with Horrible Histories author Terry Deary on projects where they hope to introduce the next generation of musicians to Baroque music. Performances with Terry have included a new narration of Purcell’s King Arthur and The Fairy Queen and The Glorious Georgians, a show at the Edinburgh Fringe.
They have devised The Story Orchestra: Four Seasons In One Day, an educational project designed around Vivaldi’s Four Seasons that has toured many schools, working with festivals and music hubs, such as the Edinburgh Book Festival and the National Centre for Early Music in York.
Eboracum Baroque give concerts regularly in their home city of York at York Mansion House, as well as frequent performances in their “second home” in Cambridge, not least of Handel’s Messiah for the past seven years to a sold-out audience of 600 each time.
Richard Thompson: Changing Platform date in Pocklington
POCKLINGTON Arts Centre has confirmed Thompson dates at the double for 2021.
Father Richard, the 71-year-old English folk-rock luminary, songwriter and guitarist, will play next summer’s Platform Festival, run by PAC at The Old Station, on July 21. Son Teddy, the English singer and songwriter long resident in New York City, is booked in for January 22.
This summer’s Covid-curtailed Platform Festival would have opened with comedian Omid Djalili on Thursday, followed by Robert Plant’s Saving Grace on Friday; Shed Seven’s Rick Witter and Paul Banks headlining Super Saturday in acoustic mode and the BBC Big Band next Tuesday.
Fairport Convention alumnus Richard Thompson, who now lives in Montclair, New Jersey, after three decades in Los Angeles, was in the diary to close the festival next Wednesday. Instead, you will have to wait a year now.
Next January, son Teddy will showcase his sixth solo studio album, Heartbreaker Please, released on May 29 on Thirty Tigers.
“Here’s the thing, you don’t love me anymore,” sings Teddy on his frank contribution to the time-honoured break-up record club. “I can tell you’ve got one foot out the door.”
Teddy Thompson: Joining the break-up album club. Picture: Gary Waldman
From the off, Heartbreaker Please wrestles with the breakdown of love with wistful levity and devastating honesty. The songs are drawn from the demise of a real-life relationship, set against the backdrop of New York City, the place Thompson has called home for the better part of two decades, having left London for the USA at 18 and settled in the Big Apple five years later.
“I took a summer vacation that never ended,” he says. “In retrospect, I was trying to reinvent myself. It was easier to leave it all behind, go somewhere new and declare myself an artist. And you can actually re-invent yourself in America; step off the plane, say ‘my name is Teddy Thompson, I’m a musician’.”
In a departure for Teddy, at the [broken] heart of Heartbreaker Please are references to someone else doing the heart-breaking. “I’m usually the one who does that!” he says. “A defence mechanism, of course, but all of a sudden I was the one on the back foot. I was the ‘plus 1’, and I admit, I didn’t deal with it very well. But also, don’t date actors.”
The relationship ended just as Thompson was finishing penning the songs that would form Heartbreaker Please. “I tend to write sad songs, slow songs. It’s what comes naturally,” he says. “So I tried to make an effort here to set some of the misery to a nice beat! Let the listener bop their heads while they weep.”
Teddy, 44-year-old son of Richard and Linda Thompson, will be supported by another artiste with a folk-roots heritage: Roseanne Reid, eldest daughter of The Proclaimers’ Craig Reid.
Tickets for Thompson times two are on sale at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
“Asking the essential timeless question about mad love”: Katie Melua’s new single A Love Like That
OVER the weekend, the serious Sunday papers were still carrying adverts for Katie Melua’s 45-date winter tour, taking in York Barbican on November 7.
We are no nearer to knowing when concert halls may re-open, but the Georgian-born Melua has announced the October 16 release of Album No. 8 – yes, her does-what-it-says-on-the-tin eighth studio album.
The accompanying tour was put in place last November in days of innocence before Covid re-wrote the rules of human engagement, but that does not stop the delivery of Melua’s “most cohesive and assured recording to date after a prolonged period of musical rediscovery” at 35.
Her most personal lyrics to date “attempt to reconcile the knotty complexities of real-life love to its fairytale counterpart, as Melua draws from the vernacular of folk songs to evoke a sense of magic-hour wonder mirrored by string arrangements whose depth and movement evoke Charles Stepney’s work with Rotary Connection and Ramsey Lewis”.
On her first studio set since 2016’s In Winter, the full track listing will be: A Love Like That; English Manner; Leaving The Mountain; Joy; Voices In The Night; Maybe I Dreamt It; Heading Home; Your Longing Is Gone; Airtime and Remind Me To Forget.
The artwork for Katie Melua’s….eighth album
Already doing the rounds is first single A Love Like That, a cinematic exploration of love, with lyrics by Melua, production by Leo Abrahams and a cast of musicians that embraces drummer Emre Ramazanoglu, flautist Jack Pinter and the Georgian Philharmonic Orchestra.
The video is the first in a series of collaborations between Melua and director Charlie Lightening, who has worked previously with Paul McCartney, Liam Gallagher and Kasabian. Joining Melua on screen is Star Wars, Dunkirk and MotherFatherSon actor Billy Howle.
“I’m really proud of the video,” says Katie. “I loved working with Charlie Lightening. We had lots of talks about how to make it a meaningful work and deal with the new limits on filming. We went with just me and Billy Howle on screen; we tried to show with subtle gestures and nuances the truth of love in its early stages. Hopefully, everyone can enjoy watching it.”
Charlie says: “It was so nice to collaborate with Katie on this project. We talked through the idea at length and honed what we wanted to achieve. It’s always so good when the artist has a strong idea of where the visual needs to go.
Katie Melua and Billy Howle: “Dealing with the new limits on filming” when making the video for A Love Like That
“It meant we could create a character and figure out this narrative journey that you go on throughout the film. The music is so cinematic, so to create this film has been so rewarding. Everything just came together perfectly in the end.”
Katie says of the writing process for A Love Like That: “This song is asking the essential timeless question about mad love: ‘How do you make a love like that last?’ But before it became about love between a couple, it started its life centred on my relationship with work and the stamina required to keep being an artist in the music industry.
“It was only after my co-composer Sam Dixon and I wrapped our session that I retreated to a cottage in the Cotswolds for three weeks to wrestle with the song’s lyrics. A Love Like That continues a narrative that is across the new album. And in the context of love, it’s about having the courage to speak openly and freely.”
Producer Leo Abrahams picks recording the orchestra in Tbilisi with Katie as his highlight. “The arrangement is written to convey the protagonist’s changing state of mind throughout the song: from turbulent to calm, sentimental to defiant,” he says. “Technically, this was probably the simplest arrangement on the record but we had to do almost 20 takes of the tremolando introduction to get the right amount of aggression but with an elegant resolution. The players seemed to enjoy it.”
Melua last played York Barbican in December 2018, when she was joined by the Gori Women’s Choir. Tickets for November 7 are on sale at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
