Concerts & Events Archive
Eccles' Semele
Tuesday 26 November at 8pm - Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge
Academy of Ancient Music & Cambridge Handel Opera Company singers
Cambridge Handel Opera Company, Cambridge Early Music and Academy of Ancient Music join forces for the first time for a rare concert performance of John Eccles' Semele.
Semele is a lively retelling of the story of Jupiter’s pursuit of the Theban princess. Juno plots her downfall by persuading her to insist on seeing him in his divine form, whereupon his thunderbolts consume her. Planned for the opening of London’s Italian Opera House, Semele was never performed at the time, and the libretto is best known today from Handel’s later Oratorio.
It is a highly dramatic and effective response to the text in an attractive idiom mixing English and Italian elements and deserves to be better known.
Pre-concert talk at 6.30pm - Michaelhouse Chapel
Professor Peter Holman and Dr Alan Howard presented by Dr Ruth Smith
Academy of Ancient Music & Cambridge Handel Opera Company singers
Cambridge Handel Opera Company, Cambridge Early Music and Academy of Ancient Music join forces for the first time for a rare concert performance of John Eccles' Semele.
Semele is a lively retelling of the story of Jupiter’s pursuit of the Theban princess. Juno plots her downfall by persuading her to insist on seeing him in his divine form, whereupon his thunderbolts consume her. Planned for the opening of London’s Italian Opera House, Semele was never performed at the time, and the libretto is best known today from Handel’s later Oratorio.
It is a highly dramatic and effective response to the text in an attractive idiom mixing English and Italian elements and deserves to be better known.
Pre-concert talk at 6.30pm - Michaelhouse Chapel
Professor Peter Holman and Dr Alan Howard presented by Dr Ruth Smith
The Sense of Hearing
Wednesday 13 November, 7pm - Recital Hall, Anglia Ruskin University
The Brook Street Band & Roots Baroque Ensemble
The eighteenth-century painter Philippe Mercier is justly celebrated for his beautiful portraits of English society, including Royalty. He often painted social gatherings of families and friends in more intimate and domestic settings, including playing musical instruments. The Brook Street Band takes Mercier’s The Sense of Hearing, his 1740s portrait of four female musicians, as the starting point for a musical exploration of the sound-worlds that these musicians would have known in England, through popular adopted ‘English’ composers of the day including Handel, and Handel’s European colleagues Bach and Telemann.
The brilliant Cambridgeshire-based Roots Baroque Ensemble (made up of aspiring young musicians who have been working with The Brook Street Band this year) sets the scene to the evening’s entertainment, with two short works by Purcell and Handel.
This concert is part of the Roots Education Project.
The Brook Street Band & Roots Baroque Ensemble
The eighteenth-century painter Philippe Mercier is justly celebrated for his beautiful portraits of English society, including Royalty. He often painted social gatherings of families and friends in more intimate and domestic settings, including playing musical instruments. The Brook Street Band takes Mercier’s The Sense of Hearing, his 1740s portrait of four female musicians, as the starting point for a musical exploration of the sound-worlds that these musicians would have known in England, through popular adopted ‘English’ composers of the day including Handel, and Handel’s European colleagues Bach and Telemann.
The brilliant Cambridgeshire-based Roots Baroque Ensemble (made up of aspiring young musicians who have been working with The Brook Street Band this year) sets the scene to the evening’s entertainment, with two short works by Purcell and Handel.
This concert is part of the Roots Education Project.
Bespoke for Broadwood: music for the divided sustaining pedal
Thursday 17 October at 7.30pm - West Road Concert Hall
David Owen Norris, 1828 Broadwood Grand Pianoforte
This concert is part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas.
An intimate evening with David Owen Norris playing on his 1828 Broadwood Grand Pianoforte Mendelssohn’s Sonata in E Op. 6 and Rondo Capriccioso along with Sterndale Bennett’s Sonata Op. 46.
For the first thirty years or so of the nineteenth century, Broadwoods sawed their wooden sustaining pedals in two, the right-hand half raising the dampers from middle C up, and the left-hand half raising the dampers from middle B down. Mendelssohn and Sterndale Bennett (Prof. of Music at the University of Cambridge from 1856 to 1875) were just two of many composers who took advantage of this potent device. Have a look to this video, where Professor David Owen Norris talks about these wonderful instruments.
David Owen Norris’s Broadwood pianoforte displays all these devices to perfection.
David Owen Norris, 1828 Broadwood Grand Pianoforte
This concert is part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas.
An intimate evening with David Owen Norris playing on his 1828 Broadwood Grand Pianoforte Mendelssohn’s Sonata in E Op. 6 and Rondo Capriccioso along with Sterndale Bennett’s Sonata Op. 46.
For the first thirty years or so of the nineteenth century, Broadwoods sawed their wooden sustaining pedals in two, the right-hand half raising the dampers from middle C up, and the left-hand half raising the dampers from middle B down. Mendelssohn and Sterndale Bennett (Prof. of Music at the University of Cambridge from 1856 to 1875) were just two of many composers who took advantage of this potent device. Have a look to this video, where Professor David Owen Norris talks about these wonderful instruments.
David Owen Norris’s Broadwood pianoforte displays all these devices to perfection.
FOCEM workshop: Sisters of Ferrara
Hughes Hall, Cambridge
13-15 September 2019
A Weekend for thirty women singers to immerse themselves in the polyphonic choral music of convents in Italy in the 16th century, from the little-known music of Suor Leonora d’Este, Princess of Ferrara, to Josquin des Prez, Cipriano de Rore and GP Palestrina amongst others.
Learn with the co-directors of Musica Secreta, Deborah Roberts and Professor Laurie Stras, about the importance of convent music in Renaissance culture, and experience how nuns made their music the true sound of the Renaissance city. Workshops with Deborah and Laurie are always brimming with exciting new research, and will challenge and delight singers with repertoire and performance practices they will not have encountered before.
In the context of the Sisters of Ferrara workshop, there are two performances which we hope you might like to attend and both are free:
Saturday Sep 14th at 6pm: A Service of Compline
Sunday Sep 15th at 3.30pm: Vespers preceded by a talk by Professor Stras at 2.30pm setting the scene.
Learn with the co-directors of Musica Secreta, Deborah Roberts and Professor Laurie Stras, about the importance of convent music in Renaissance culture, and experience how nuns made their music the true sound of the Renaissance city. Workshops with Deborah and Laurie are always brimming with exciting new research, and will challenge and delight singers with repertoire and performance practices they will not have encountered before.
In the context of the Sisters of Ferrara workshop, there are two performances which we hope you might like to attend and both are free:
Saturday Sep 14th at 6pm: A Service of Compline
Sunday Sep 15th at 3.30pm: Vespers preceded by a talk by Professor Stras at 2.30pm setting the scene.
Renaissance Summer School Showcase
Saturday 10 August at 7.30pm - Girton College Great Hall, Cambridge
City voices, Courtly airs
Wednesday 7 August - Emmanuel United Reform Church, Cambridge
At 7pm pre-concert talk by Professor Richard Freedman
At 8pm concert by The Courtiers of Grace
A journey through sixteenth-century France, from chanson to air de cour, via the city tavern and the turbulence of the Reformation church, with adventures along the way in words taking charge of music. Works by Josquin, Le Jeune, Sermisy, Sandrin, Janequin, Certon, Lassus and others.
At 7pm pre-concert talk by Professor Richard Freedman
At 8pm concert by The Courtiers of Grace
A journey through sixteenth-century France, from chanson to air de cour, via the city tavern and the turbulence of the Reformation church, with adventures along the way in words taking charge of music. Works by Josquin, Le Jeune, Sermisy, Sandrin, Janequin, Certon, Lassus and others.
Jouyssance vous donneray
Sunday 4 August at 4pm - Girton College Chapel, Cambridge
The Courtiers of Grace
The sixteenth century was a turbulent one all over Europe, with political and religious mistrust and upheaval touching every country, France more than most. French music, however, found enthusiastic admirers and willing imitators across many countries. This concert shows some of the ways in which innovative, tuneful and poetic French songs found new life and expression at home, across the channel and south of the Alps.
The Courtiers of Grace
The sixteenth century was a turbulent one all over Europe, with political and religious mistrust and upheaval touching every country, France more than most. French music, however, found enthusiastic admirers and willing imitators across many countries. This concert shows some of the ways in which innovative, tuneful and poetic French songs found new life and expression at home, across the channel and south of the Alps.
Baroque Summer School showcase
Saturday 3 August at 7.30pm - Girton College Great Hall, Cambridge
Our Baroque Summer School students perform the chamber and large-scale pieces they have worked on during the week.
Our Baroque Summer School students perform the chamber and large-scale pieces they have worked on during the week.
Marc-Antoine Charpentier & François Couperin
Wednesday 31 July - Emmanuel United Reform Church, Cambridge
At 7pm Pre-concert talk by Professor Graham Sadler
At 8pm Concert by The Parley of Instruments and Claire Coleman soprano, Daniel Auchincloss haute contre, Stuart O’Hara bass
A double musical portrait of the two greatest French composers of the reign of Louis XIV. We survey some of the extraordinary music Marc-Antoine Charpentier wrote for the virtuoso ensemble in the household of the Duchesse de Guise, including extracts from the chamber opera Actéon, the serenata ‘Sù, sù, sù, non dormite’ and the passionate solo motet ‘Magdalena lugens’. Charpentier’s music is a creative synthesis of French and Italian elements, and his young admirer François Couperin took the process a stage further in the beautiful but little-known motets and sonatas he wrote in the 1690s, soon after he began working at Versailles. We contrast festive motets for St Anne and St Susanna with the dramatic ‘Audite omnes’, a meditation on the passion for solo haute contre.
At 7pm Pre-concert talk by Professor Graham Sadler
At 8pm Concert by The Parley of Instruments and Claire Coleman soprano, Daniel Auchincloss haute contre, Stuart O’Hara bass
A double musical portrait of the two greatest French composers of the reign of Louis XIV. We survey some of the extraordinary music Marc-Antoine Charpentier wrote for the virtuoso ensemble in the household of the Duchesse de Guise, including extracts from the chamber opera Actéon, the serenata ‘Sù, sù, sù, non dormite’ and the passionate solo motet ‘Magdalena lugens’. Charpentier’s music is a creative synthesis of French and Italian elements, and his young admirer François Couperin took the process a stage further in the beautiful but little-known motets and sonatas he wrote in the 1690s, soon after he began working at Versailles. We contrast festive motets for St Anne and St Susanna with the dramatic ‘Audite omnes’, a meditation on the passion for solo haute contre.
La Boutade: French Chamber Music from Versailles to Paris Sunday 28
July at 4pm - Girton College Chapel, Cambridge
The Parley of Instruments
Lully’s La Boutade (caprice or mischief) begins this fascinating musical journey from the royal bedchamber at Versailles, where Louis XIV was entertained by chamber music played by court wind and string players, to the bustling streets and the popular theatres of eighteenth-century Paris, where Michel Corrette’s concertos comiques on popular tunes were played and Joseph Bodin de Boismortier wrote his remarkable balets de village evoking rustic music-making. Along the way we encounter music by Marin Marais, Anne-Danican Philidor, Antoine Dornel and Jacques-Christophe Naudot (who contributes another remarkable caprice) for varied combinations of recorders, oboe, violins, bass viol, violoncello and harpsichord.
The Parley of Instruments
Lully’s La Boutade (caprice or mischief) begins this fascinating musical journey from the royal bedchamber at Versailles, where Louis XIV was entertained by chamber music played by court wind and string players, to the bustling streets and the popular theatres of eighteenth-century Paris, where Michel Corrette’s concertos comiques on popular tunes were played and Joseph Bodin de Boismortier wrote his remarkable balets de village evoking rustic music-making. Along the way we encounter music by Marin Marais, Anne-Danican Philidor, Antoine Dornel and Jacques-Christophe Naudot (who contributes another remarkable caprice) for varied combinations of recorders, oboe, violins, bass viol, violoncello and harpsichord.
Choral Matins: with music by Scarlatti and Monteverdi (Free entry)
Sunday 12 May at 10.30am – King’s College Chapel
Choir of King’s College, Stephen Cleobury director
Come to this wonderful Sunday service in one of the most beautiful College Chapels in Cambridge to hear the choir of King’s College singing two early music masterpieces: Scarlatti’s Te Deum and Monteverdi’s Cantate Domino.
Choir of King’s College, Stephen Cleobury director
Come to this wonderful Sunday service in one of the most beautiful College Chapels in Cambridge to hear the choir of King’s College singing two early music masterpieces: Scarlatti’s Te Deum and Monteverdi’s Cantate Domino.
The Flower of the Italian Madrigal
Saturday 11 May at 8pm - Trinity College Chapel
The Gesualdo Six, Owain Park director
Music from and inspired by Italy’s Golden Age, featuring renaissance giants: Monteverdi, Lassus, Gesualdo, Palestrina and Byrd alongside musical gems by contemporary composers György Ligeti and Sarah Rimkus.
The Gesualdo Six, Owain Park director
Music from and inspired by Italy’s Golden Age, featuring renaissance giants: Monteverdi, Lassus, Gesualdo, Palestrina and Byrd alongside musical gems by contemporary composers György Ligeti and Sarah Rimkus.
Spanish Glories of the 16th century
Friday 10 May at 7.30pm - King’s College Chapel (in association with Concerts at King's)
Tenebrae, Nigel Short director
Tenebrae will present its BBC Music Magazine award-winning interpretation of Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Requiem Mass for six voices, written in 1603 and published in 1605. This masterpiece is one of a handful of large-scale works which enjoys mainstream appeal in the 21st century. For many, it represents what Renaissance polyphony is, what it sounds and feels like, and how expressive it can be. The programme also features a selection from Victoria’s Tenebrae Responsories and Lamentations for Holy Saturday alongside the captivating Versa est in luctum by his contemporary Alonso Lobo.
Tenebrae, Nigel Short director
Tenebrae will present its BBC Music Magazine award-winning interpretation of Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Requiem Mass for six voices, written in 1603 and published in 1605. This masterpiece is one of a handful of large-scale works which enjoys mainstream appeal in the 21st century. For many, it represents what Renaissance polyphony is, what it sounds and feels like, and how expressive it can be. The programme also features a selection from Victoria’s Tenebrae Responsories and Lamentations for Holy Saturday alongside the captivating Versa est in luctum by his contemporary Alonso Lobo.
The Blind Fiddlers
Friday 10 May at 1.30pm - Little St Mary's Church
Sollazzo Ensemble
It is said that on a warm morning of the year 1389, in the Florentine garden known as ‘Il Paradiso’, Francesco degli Organi, famed for his virtuosity, accepted a bet to silence the birds by the beauty of his organ playing. This blind composer and multi-instrumentalist was known in the city not only for his musical prowess, but also for his rhetorical abilities and philosophical views. A perfect rep-resentative of incipient humanism, Francesco, together with fellow composers such as Lorenzo da Firenze, Andrea Stefani and Giovanni da Firenze, was to bring the music of their time to its apogee.
The Sollazzo Ensemble's second concert in the Cambridge Festival of the Voice features the music of the two blind fiddle players, Jehan Ferrandes and Jehan de Cordoval, whose amazing playing influenced Dufay and Binchois.
Sollazzo Ensemble
It is said that on a warm morning of the year 1389, in the Florentine garden known as ‘Il Paradiso’, Francesco degli Organi, famed for his virtuosity, accepted a bet to silence the birds by the beauty of his organ playing. This blind composer and multi-instrumentalist was known in the city not only for his musical prowess, but also for his rhetorical abilities and philosophical views. A perfect rep-resentative of incipient humanism, Francesco, together with fellow composers such as Lorenzo da Firenze, Andrea Stefani and Giovanni da Firenze, was to bring the music of their time to its apogee.
The Sollazzo Ensemble's second concert in the Cambridge Festival of the Voice features the music of the two blind fiddle players, Jehan Ferrandes and Jehan de Cordoval, whose amazing playing influenced Dufay and Binchois.
Firenze circa 1350: Music from the age of the birth of humanism
Thursday 9 May at 8pm - Trinity College Chapel
Sollazzo Ensemble
Winners of the Cambridge Early Music prize at the 2015 York Early Music Festival competition for young artists, their first concert explores the music of mid-14th century Florence, with its exceptional virtuosity, haunting melodies, and writing both elegant and fiery.
Between 1350 and 1400, the city of Florence was the epicentre of a cultural blossoming which has influenced Italian culture to this day: architecture and arts were undergoing an aesthetical changeover, the Tuscan dialect was elevated to a language of literature by the poets Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, and the population of Florence became exceptionally cultivated and well-educated. More than two thirds of the male population were able to read, and a new elite was born out of the blend of merchants with international trade relations and the culturally curious middle class. The production of manuscripts, notably musical ones, increased suddenly, creating not only professionally crafted luxurious, highly ornate exemplars, but also so-called zibaldoni — personal notebooks, through which we can gain an intimate impression of the intellectual life in Florence at that time.
Sollazzo Ensemble
Winners of the Cambridge Early Music prize at the 2015 York Early Music Festival competition for young artists, their first concert explores the music of mid-14th century Florence, with its exceptional virtuosity, haunting melodies, and writing both elegant and fiery.
Between 1350 and 1400, the city of Florence was the epicentre of a cultural blossoming which has influenced Italian culture to this day: architecture and arts were undergoing an aesthetical changeover, the Tuscan dialect was elevated to a language of literature by the poets Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, and the population of Florence became exceptionally cultivated and well-educated. More than two thirds of the male population were able to read, and a new elite was born out of the blend of merchants with international trade relations and the culturally curious middle class. The production of manuscripts, notably musical ones, increased suddenly, creating not only professionally crafted luxurious, highly ornate exemplars, but also so-called zibaldoni — personal notebooks, through which we can gain an intimate impression of the intellectual life in Florence at that time.
A ‘Queen Anne’ Evensong (Free entry)
Tuesday 7 May at 6.30pm – Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge
Choir of Gonville & Caius College
This Evensong will make you feel royal as listening to Jeremiah Clarke's piece composed for Queen Anne's coronation among other gems from William Croft and Philip Hart.
Choir of Gonville & Caius College
This Evensong will make you feel royal as listening to Jeremiah Clarke's piece composed for Queen Anne's coronation among other gems from William Croft and Philip Hart.
“Un-plucked” – lute music from the Baroque to last month!
Saturday 13 April, 8pm
Clough Hall, Newnham College
Star Sicilian lutenist Daniele Caminiti and duo partner Mirko Arnone present an exciting evening of music by Antonio Vivaldi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger and Raphael Fusco. The programme will also feature a world premiere piece by Antonino Pirrone.
Mirko Arnone and Daniele Caminiti have created a world of sound that is full of seamless passages, colourful dynamics and mastery of style.
Rheinische Post
Clough Hall, Newnham College
Star Sicilian lutenist Daniele Caminiti and duo partner Mirko Arnone present an exciting evening of music by Antonio Vivaldi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger and Raphael Fusco. The programme will also feature a world premiere piece by Antonino Pirrone.
Mirko Arnone and Daniele Caminiti have created a world of sound that is full of seamless passages, colourful dynamics and mastery of style.
Rheinische Post
Voces8: Sing Joyfully
Tuesday 19 March, 7pm
Trinity College Chapel
Internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble, and MMus ensemble in association at the University of Cambridge, VOCES8 presents Sing Joyfully, a celebration of the joy and beauty of voices in harmony. In praise of the European Day of Early Music, Bach’s birthday (‘Boureé’!) and showcasing of our joint education project ‘Roots’, “Joy and woe are woven fine” in a programme including Byrd, Tallis, Victoria, Britten and Dove, with Monteverdi’s dramatic rendering of La Sestina at its centre-point.
‘The singing of VOCES8 is impeccable in its quality of tone and balance. They bring a new dimension to the word “ensemble” with meticulous timing and tuning.’ Gramophone
Trinity College Chapel
Internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble, and MMus ensemble in association at the University of Cambridge, VOCES8 presents Sing Joyfully, a celebration of the joy and beauty of voices in harmony. In praise of the European Day of Early Music, Bach’s birthday (‘Boureé’!) and showcasing of our joint education project ‘Roots’, “Joy and woe are woven fine” in a programme including Byrd, Tallis, Victoria, Britten and Dove, with Monteverdi’s dramatic rendering of La Sestina at its centre-point.
‘The singing of VOCES8 is impeccable in its quality of tone and balance. They bring a new dimension to the word “ensemble” with meticulous timing and tuning.’ Gramophone
From Virginals to Harpsichords by Dr Dan Tidhar
Insight Lecture-recital
Saturday 9 February 2019, 6pm
The Pavilion Room, Hughes Hall
Early keyboard instruments which involve plucking of strings (sometimes simply referred to as “plucked keyboard instruments”) come in many different sizes and shapes, which vary according to time, geography, musical style and function.
This lecture-recital will focus on three distinguished members of this family of instruments: the virginals, the Italian single-manual harpsichord and the French double-manual harpsichord. Dr Tidhar will present fine examples of these instruments, outline the structural and acoustic similarities and differences between them, and will demonstrate how these affect the particular idioms of composition and performance for which the individual instruments are particularly suitable.
The musical examples will include excerpts from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, early English and Italian Baroque as well as high Baroque German and French harpsichord music.
Saturday 9 February 2019, 6pm
The Pavilion Room, Hughes Hall
Early keyboard instruments which involve plucking of strings (sometimes simply referred to as “plucked keyboard instruments”) come in many different sizes and shapes, which vary according to time, geography, musical style and function.
This lecture-recital will focus on three distinguished members of this family of instruments: the virginals, the Italian single-manual harpsichord and the French double-manual harpsichord. Dr Tidhar will present fine examples of these instruments, outline the structural and acoustic similarities and differences between them, and will demonstrate how these affect the particular idioms of composition and performance for which the individual instruments are particularly suitable.
The musical examples will include excerpts from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, early English and Italian Baroque as well as high Baroque German and French harpsichord music.
The Caius to a Baroque Christmas
The Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge | The Caius Consort
Thursday 6 December 2018, 8pm
Great St Mary's Church
Gonville & Caius College Choir (dir. Geoffrey Webber) present Charpentier's rarely performed Messe de Minuit pour Noël with the Caius Consort (dir. Rachel Stroud).
Alongside the Charpentier which is based on beautiful French noëls, Caius College Choir promises sparkle with baubles by other Baroque masters including Weckmann’s dramatic dialogue for the Annunciation with recorders and violins, Buxtehude’s extended Christmas concerto with its charming refrain telling of the newborn child, and a magnificent Christmas Day motet by Schütz. Between these vocal works we hear some remarkable organ music by Weckmann and an anonymous virtuoso violin sonata on the chorale Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern performed by Rachel Stroud.
Great St Mary's Church
Gonville & Caius College Choir (dir. Geoffrey Webber) present Charpentier's rarely performed Messe de Minuit pour Noël with the Caius Consort (dir. Rachel Stroud).
Alongside the Charpentier which is based on beautiful French noëls, Caius College Choir promises sparkle with baubles by other Baroque masters including Weckmann’s dramatic dialogue for the Annunciation with recorders and violins, Buxtehude’s extended Christmas concerto with its charming refrain telling of the newborn child, and a magnificent Christmas Day motet by Schütz. Between these vocal works we hear some remarkable organ music by Weckmann and an anonymous virtuoso violin sonata on the chorale Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern performed by Rachel Stroud.
“Superb sound, and singing burgeoning with colour and confidence” (BBC Music Magazine, A Caius Christmas)
"Sung with vivid assurance... the results are rich and engaging" (The Guardian)
“An excellent body of sound and extraordinarily agile voices” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung)
"Sung with vivid assurance... the results are rich and engaging" (The Guardian)
“An excellent body of sound and extraordinarily agile voices” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung)
