Tag: Toby Carr

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Welcome to Heaven & Hell as York Early Music Festival announces 2025 theme and international artists for July 4 to 11 event

Festival commission: BBC New Generation artist and mezzo soprano Helen Charlston will perform new Anna Disley-Simpson work with theorbo player Toby Carr in In Heaven & Hell…Yours To Choose on July 9 at Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, York, at 6.30pm. Picture: Julien Gazeau

HEAVEN & Hell will be the theme of the 2025 York Early Music Festival, a summer fiesta of 19 concerts in eight days featuring international artists from July 4 to 11.

The Sixteen, the Tallis Scholars and Academy of Ancient Music will be taking part, as will French orchestral ensemble Le Consort, led by rising-star violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, in their York debut with an “exceptional rendition of exceptional of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – but not quite as you know it”.

The festival will intertwine three very different themes: firstly, the music of Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons, opening with viol consort Fretwork (Friday, July 4); secondly, the genius of the Baroque, focusing on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (Sunday, July 6).

Thirdly, the strand that lends itself to the 2025 title: a reflection on Man’s fall from grace – from Heaven to Hell – in biblical times with YEMF artistic advisor and BBC New Generation artist Helen Charlston and her fellow Gramophone Award-winner, lutenist and theorbo player Toby Carr (Wednesday, July 9) in the medieval Guildhall of the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall.

Fretwork: Viol consort will open York Early Music Festival with Renaissance music of Orlando Gibbons in My Days: Songs and Fantasias with mezzo soprano Helen Charlston on July 4 at 7.30pm at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York

The Tallis Scholars (Saturday, July 5) and The Sixteen (Monday, July 7) will share their programmes in the glorious surroundings of York Minster; the Spanish ensemble Cantoria (Tuesday, July 8) will present a sizzling array of ensaladas and villancicos in their A La Fiesta programme and Swiss- based medievalists Sollazzo (Thursday, July 10) will return to York for the first time since winning a prestigious Diapason d’Or award.

The festival will finish with a flourish in the company of the Academy of Ancient Music and their leader, violinist Bojan Čičić (Friday, July 11) in a celebration of Bach’s violin concertos.

York Early Music Festival continues to support emerging musicians with invitations to two 2024 York Early Music Festival Young Artists Competition winners, Ayres Extemporae and Ensemble Bastion.

Once again, the festival will showcase a variety of York’s beautiful historic buildings, such as the Minster, the medieval Merchant Adventurers’ Hall and the intriguing hidden architectural gem Bedern Hall.

The Sixteen: Returning to York Minster to present Angel Of Peace on July 7 at 7.30pm

In an open call for the York Early Music Festival Special Commission, NCEM Young Composers Award alumni were invited to respond to the Heaven & Hell theme by writing a piece to be performed by Charlston and Carr as part of their In Heaven & Hell…Yours To Choose programme featuring Purcell, Strozzi, Monteverdi, Charpentier and Humfrey works on July 9.

Anna Disley-Simpson has been awarded the commission from a competitive field of 24 applications for her piece Heaven Or Hell, for which she will collaborate with librettist Olivia Bell, drawing inspiration from Kurt Weill. Expect her composition to be “deliberately subversive and unexpected in several ways,” Anna promises.

Supported by the Hinrichsen Foundation and an anonymous donor, Anna will receive a commission fee of £2,000, plus travel and accommodation expenses within the United Kingdom to attend a workshop with the musicians in London and the York premiere.

Looking forward to the July event, festival director Dr Delma Tomlin says: “We are thrilled to welcome friends old and new to what promises to be a fantastic celebration of music from an outstanding array of artists.

Le Consort: French orchestral ensemble will make York Early Music Festival debut on July 6, performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, at 7.30pm

“Celebrating over 500 years of music from across Europe, we are particularly delighted to be able to welcome ensembles from France, Switzerland, Poland, Spain and the Netherlands to our wonderful city. We look forward to welcoming visitors and residents alike to eight wonderful days of music-making.”

The full programme and booking details can be found at ncem.co.uk/whats-on/yemf/. Bookings also can be made on 01904 658338, via boxoffice@ncem.co.uk and in person at the NCEM, Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York.  

York Early Music Festival: the back story

ESTABLISHED in 1977, the festival is designed to celebrate York’s myriad of medieval churches, guildhalls and historic houses through historically informed music-making of the highest international standard.

The annual event is the “jewel in the crown” of the National Centre for Early Music’s annual programme, enjoyed by York residents and visitors from all over the UK and across the world.

The Tallis Scholars: Performing Glorious Creatures programme at York Minster on July 5 at 7.30pm. Picture: Hugo Glendinning

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Helen Charlston & Toby Carr and Marian & Rose Consorts at York Early Music Festival

Helen Charlston: “A voice like no other”

York Early Music Festival: Helen Charlston & Toby Carr, Undercroft, Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, York, July 10; The Marian Consort & Rose Consort of Viols, National Centre for Early Music, York, July 11

THERE is something special about a late-night recital, especially when the lights are low. The low-ceilinged Undercroft, with the audience in darkness and the performers dimly back-lit, was just the ticket for a spot of drama.

With the trusty theorbo of Toby Carr for support, Helen Charlston brought her considerable voice to bear on battle-hardened heroines.

Hers is no ordinary mezzo, as in soprano without the high notes. She has a considerable range, both high and low, but her tone is smoothly focused throughout, without sign of gear changing. Add to that a flair for diction which adds conviction to her theatricality, and you have a voice like no other. This was an exciting evening.

She opened and closed with Purcell. His most successful song in Bonduca (Boadicea as imagined by John Fletcher), O Lead Me To Some Peaceful Gloom, neatly captured the heroine’s inner conflict, and An Evening Hymn spoke of bold spiritual confidence.

She also evinced a special feel for the music of17th-century Italian Barbara Strozzi, a singer herself. The bitter-sweet pain of L’Heraclito Amoroso and the marvellously Italianate decorations in La Travagliata (The Tormented Woman) were meat and drink to Charlston’s skill.

She took her programme title, Battle Cry, from an eponymous work by Owain Park setting poetry by Georgia Way, which she premiered in 2021. It pictures intimate reactions to four ‘abandoned’ women: a lament for Boadicea, the solitude of Philomela, a prayer to Sappho and love-regret for Marietta.

Here she showed an uncommon affinity for the words, in vocal lines that were grateful even when occasionally flowery. Carr’s underpinnings were invaluable; as so often elsewhere, his rhythmic awareness added colour to the ebb and flow of passion. Its harmonies were modern but its aura evoked a much earlier era.

The highlight of the programme was the nobility in Charlston’s approach to Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna, which allowed us to discern a steely centre to the heroine’s emotional roller-coaster. Her dramatic style suggested that she must soon have a future on the operatic stage.

Carr was with her every step of the way. Indeed, it would have been good to hear more from him alone than the three brief solos we were allowed. Either way, they made a powerful duo.

The Marian Consort, represented by six voices at the NCEM on July 11

THE following lunchtime saw the combination of two consorts, the Rose Consort of Viols, which harks back to this festival’s origins, and the Marian Consort (of six voices). Byrd At Elizabeth’s Court celebrated the great man’s high-wire act as a Roman Catholic under a Protestant ruler.

It also allowed anthems normally heard with organ accompaniment to be experienced with the intimate richness of viols.

At its heart lay Byrd’s carol anthem Lullaby, My Sweet Little Baby, which features the Virgin Mary’s gentle retort to the Massacre of the Innocents.

Responding to a new commission from the consorts to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Byrd’s death, Juta Pranulytė sensitively chose the same text to reflect the number of children born into war, cruelty and oppression in our own day.

Pranulytė’s smooth vocal lines moved in mainly close harmony over viols required at times to produce trills and portamentos. The soprano opened at the top of her range and needed to negotiate several high semi-tonal shifts.

The atmosphere thus conjured was elegiac, combining comfort with tears, in a style reminiscent of Byrd’s own musical misgivings about the plight of Roman Catholics under Elizabeth. Apart from its prologue, which was diffuse, this was a canny piece of writing that fell easily on the ear.

Several verse anthems surrounded this centrepiece. The higher-voiced soloists mainly needed to enunciate more clearly, but choral blend was exquisite. Byrd’s rare setting of Italian, the Ariosto poem La Verginella, was delicately treated by the soprano Caroline Halls.

Other highlights included the madrigal-style Come To Me Grief, For Ever, sung unaccompanied, and a gorgeous Amen to close the New Year carol O God That Guides The Cheerful Sun. The Tallis motet O Sacrum Convivium, sung from the back of the hall, was an apt reminder of Byrd’s important mentor and (later) close colleague.

The Roses offered several pieces on their own, including a five-part Tallis fantasia reconstructed by John Milsom and Byrd’s voluntary for Lady Nevell, infused with snappy figurations. His variation-packed Browning was typical of the ensemble’s smooth dexterity.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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