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Catherine Mackintosh to receive York Early Music Festival Lifetime Achievement Award

Catherine Mackintosh: Lifetime Achievement Award

AFTER a two-year wait, violinist Catherine Mackintosh will be presented with the York Early Music Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award on July 10.

The belated ceremony will take place during the 2022 York Early Music Festival, to be held from July 8 to 16.

Known to the profession as Cat, Mackintosh is a pioneering force in the British early music scene. After picking up a treble viol while studying at the Royal College of Music, London, she never looked back.

Consort-playing gave her the foundations of understanding the aesthetics and language of baroque music, soon to be translated to the violin. She led various orchestras, notably Christopher Hogwood’s Academy of Ancient Music, and later co-founded and led the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment for two decades.

As a founder of the Purcell Quartet, Cat recorded and performed all the major works of the baroque trio-sonata repertoire – and much more – the world over. She was also Britain’s pioneer and champion of the viola d’amore.

Cat’s influence as a teacher and educator has been far-reaching, with many generations of violinists, violists and other instrumentalists passing through her hands at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Conservatoire The Hague, as well as on numerous courses worldwide. 

Cat will be interviewed from the National Centre for Early Music, in Walmgate, by Hannah French on BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show on July 10, broadcast live from the festival. Post-show, she will be presented with the award, in front of an audience, by Romanian-born Israeli violinist Kati Debretzeni, who studied Baroque violin with Cat at the Royal College of Music.

The York Early Music Lifetime Achievement Award honours major figures for making a significant difference to the world of early music. Previous winners were: Kuijken String Quartet in 2006; Dame Emma Kirkby, 2008; James Bowman, 2010; Jordi Savall, 2012; Andrew Parrott, 2014; Anthony Rooley, 2016, and Trevor Pinnock, 2018.

Commenting on the award, Cat says: “I ask myself…is it really an achievement to have enjoyed 50 years doing what I love with people I love and admire? Only in the sense of having survived this long! 

“Anyway, I am tremendously touched and honoured to receive this award and to join the list of the previous recipients – all friends and colleagues from whom I’ve learnt much and with whom I have happily travelled this musical road.”

NCEM director and festival artistic director Delma Tomlin enthuses: “I’m delighted that Catherine will finally be receiving this award after a rather long wait!  She has a long association with the NCEM and the festival.

“Her wonderful career, not just as a performer, but also as a mentor and teacher, has had an extraordinary impact on the world of early music. We can’t wait to welcome her to York and celebrate this amazing achievement with her this July.”

The full festival programme and ticket details can be found at ncem.co.uk/what’s-on/yemf/.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Violins of the OAE, Hovingham Hall, Ryedale Festival, 21/7/2021

Kati Debretzeni: “She sounded as if there were at least three of her”

Ryedale Festival: Violins of the Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment, Hovingham Hall, Hovingham, July 21

ONE of the benefits of the pandemic – there have not been many – is the rethinking it has brought about. Social distancing makes it impossible for the entire Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment (OAE) to take the stage together. So the eight violins have decided to break out and do their own thing.

This was the second of two Baroque concerts they gave in the receptive acoustic of Hovingham’s old riding stables. All eight opened boldly in a Telemann concerto with four solo roles, making the most of the dissonance in the slow movements and adding really crisp rhythms to the powerful unison that opened the finale.

Thereafter, we enjoyed smaller groupings. Kati Debretzeni appeared on her own in an improvisation (Passaggio Rotto) and fantasia in A minor by Nicola Matteis the elder, who settled in England in the 1670s. Carefree in the first part, she was so brilliantly in command of the advanced techniques in the second that she sounded as if there were at least three of her.

After a dance-like start, Dan Edgar and Claire Holden engaged in much jocular dialogue in Telemann’s ‘Gulliver’ Suite in D, regularly changing tempos on the spur of the moment. The prelude to Bach’s third partita for solo violin made an engaging arrangement for a foursome, also highly conversational.

Even more exciting was the first movement of his ‘Italian’ concerto, in a wonderful arrangement for a quartet whose shading was masterly.

The sudden tempo changes in Giovanni Gabrieli’s Canzon Duodecimi Toni, written for two brass choirs, worked well in this building, although without quite the bite of the original. But the blend was impeccable. A threesome by Joseph Fux was well crafted, as you might expect from him, its suspensions a little forced, but the voices dovetailed neatly in its finale.

Finally, another concerto by Telemann, this time for only four players, brought some magical pianissimos, almost prefiguring Mendelssohn’s fairy music. The sheer panache and enjoyment of these players was a tonic throughout the evening.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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Beverley Early Music festivities will be live in May and online too for the first time in June

Kati Debretzeni: Taking a tour of Europe through the “lens” of a violin on May 30 at Toll Gavel United Church in Beverley

BEVERLEY Early Music festivities for 2021 will have a new look in May and June.

As the Government’s phases of easing lockdown unfold, the National Centre for Early Music (NCEM), York, and the Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival will present, not one, but two musical celebrations from the East Yorkshire town.

Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival ’21 Live will run from May 28 to 30, followed by Beverley ’21 Online: Concerts, Talks and Hidden Gems on June 5 and 6.

Social-distancing restrictions and the festival’s commitment to accommodating all those who booked for last year’s postponed festival mean that only a limited number of tickets are on sale for the “in person” concerts at the end of May.

All the concerts, however, will be available to enjoy in the specially created digital festival, Beverley ’21 Online, on the first weekend in June.

Festival director Dr Delma Tomlin says: “We are delighted to be returning to Beverley and we’ve been working hard to ensure that our 2021 festival is available for everyone to enjoy. “As well as producing a live festival, for the first time we are delighted to invite you to join our festival online, which showcases of the majesty of the glorious county town of Beverley.”  

Delma continues: “Beverley ’21 Online is a specially commissioned digital version of the festival filmed around the town and audiences will be able to enjoy all the concerts from the weekend, plus talks and exclusive footage of some of Beverley’s magnificent historic buildings.

Alva and Vivien Ellis: Teaming up for Angels In The Architecture at St Mary’s Church, Beverley, on May 29

“We hope you’ll join us for this joyous celebration of wonderful music set against the backdrop of this beautiful Yorkshire town.”

Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival ’21 Live, Friday, May 28 to Sunday, May 30

May 28, Beverley Minster, 7.30pm to 8.40pm:  Stile Antico, Toward The Dawn, sold out

This programme charts a course from twilight to sunrise, seductive and unsettling in equal measure. Thrill to the spine-tingling sounds of Allegri’s beloved Miserere and enter into the glorious sound world of Nico Muhly’s Gentle Sleep, a haunting setting of words by Shakespeare, written especially for the 12 voices of Stile Antico.

Singers: sopranos Helen Ashby, Kate Ashby, Rebecca Hickey; altos Emma Ashby, Cara Curran, Hannah Cooke; tenors Andrew Griffiths, Jonathan Hanley, Benedict Hymas; basses James Arthur, Will Dawes, Nathan Harrison.

May 29, St Mary’s Church, 12.30pm to 1.30pm: Alva, Angels In The Architecture

Vivien Ellis, voice, Giles Lewin, fiddles and bagpipes, and Leah Stuttard, mediaeval harps, perform songs and melodies spanning 1,000 years, revealing stories hidden in the stones of the beautiful St Mary’s Church.

Stile Antico: Twelve steps Toward The Dawn at Beverley Minster on May 28

May 29, Toll Gavel United Church, 7.30pm to 8.30pm: La Serenissima with Tabea Debus, recorder, “The Italian Gang”, sold out

Life-affirming music of 18th-century Venice, featuring Sammartini and Vivaldi, directed by Adam Chandler.

May 30, Toll Gavel United Church, 3pm to 4pm: Kati Debretzeni, violin, Through The Eye Of A Lens  

A virtual tour of Europe through the “lens” of a violin, performed by one of the world’s leading exponents.

May 30, St John’s RC Church, Beverley, 6.30pm to 7.30pm: Ex Corde, Heaven On Earth: Thomas More’s Utopian Dream

Reflections based on Thomas More’s Utopia with vocal music by Robert Fayrfax and Josquin des Prez, plus the premiere of a commission by Christopher Fox, inspired by More’s vision, directed by Paul Gameson.

Ex Corde: Finding Heaven On Earth at ST John’s RC Church, Beverley, on May 30

May 29 and 30, Beverley Ballad Walks; Saturday, In And Around Beverley Minster, 4pm; Sunday, It All Happened In Beverley!, 10am, and In And Around Beverley Minster, 1pm

Taking place over the live festival weekend will be the hugely popular Ballad Walks, led by singer Vivien Ellis, brimming with songs and stories from the streets. The tales span 800 years of history and reveal Beverley’s sometimes murky past, as well as the fascinating tales of inhabitants.

Beverley ’21 Online, Saturday, June 5 and Sunday, June 6

TO ensure the festival can be enjoyed by the widest possible audience, all five concerts will be filmed and available online, with an added bonus of many exclusive treats. 

Historian David Neave will talk about the Pilgrims of the East Riding, who left these shores in 1638 to set out for a new, and better, world in North America; Stile Antico share the music of the period through a specially commissioned film available to all ticket holders; and John Bryan, Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Huddersfield, introduces the festival from the Rococo splendour of Beverley Guildhall.

There also will be opportunities to visit some of Beverley’s hidden gems in the company of guest curators Fiona Jenkinson and Dr Jennie England.

Further details of Beverley ’21 Online will be available from May 6.

For full Beverley Early Music festivities details, times and ticket prices, go to: ncem.co.uk.

Tickets are on sale now online at ncem.co.uk/whats-on-bemf/, by email to boxoffice@ncem.co.uk or on 01904 658338, but due to limited capacity, some events may be sold out already, and the organisers will be operating a waiting list via email sent to boxoffice@ncem.co.uk.