Gawain has a host of award-winning recordings to his name, and works with many of the world’s finest and most progressive interpreters of Early Music. Though CEM’s Renaissance Summer School is Gawain’s only current course directorship, his research and expertise in the field of ornamenting early music has also led to him becoming increasingly in demand as a coach for both singers and instrumentalists. His experience as a professional singer and player of reed instruments and recorders contributes to Gawain’s reputation as a highly versatile musician. Gawain brings to the position a combination of practical expertise and a wealth of historical knowledge, as well as a firm belief in fostering an inclusive approach: ​

Gawain has invited a new team of internationally recognised tutors to work alongside him. They are experienced and patient coaches who provide expertise across an enormous range of instruments. They include Clare Wilkinson (voice), Jacob Heringman (lute), Dr. Uri Smilansky (viols and recorder), Catherine Motuz (sackbut and improvisation) and William Lyons (shawm, traverso, recorder, pipes, curtal). ​Don’t miss this rare opportunity to study and perform exciting repertoire from ‘The Sounds of Court and City in 16th-century France’ with The Courtiers of Grace. Full information can be found here. 

​Gawain joins revered Baroque course director Peter Holman, who has been expertly guiding CEM’s much-loved courses for many years. Participants from age 18 upwards who have suitable skills are warmly welcomed, and financial support and course scholarships are now available through Cambridge Early Music’s ‘Selene Webb (née Mills) Memorial Bursary Fund’.
 
The Baroque Summer School, Paris versus Versailles, runs 28 July-4 August 2019; the Renaissance Summer School, Le Cris de Paris, runs 4-11 August 2019. Places are available on both courses and applications are welcome.

Cuts in funding, reduced participation and falling numbers taking music have created an “existential crisis” (Lord Black, House of Lords, 18 October, 2018). Concerns continue to be expressed in the press today.
 
Ahead of the newly appointed government panel’s first meeting to develop a model music curriculum (meeting on 5 February), and in response to an ever-deepening crisis which has seen only 295 teachers signing up to train as music teachers this year (a drop of 55% in the last 8 years), a new initiative has been launched this week by a unique partnership of leading research institutions, professional musicians, education providers and charitable bodies in Cambridgeshire. 
 
The three-year project, Roots, trials a new model for music provision within primary and secondary schools across the region. Despite Cambridge’s outward prosperity, the disparity in wealth and opportunity across the county is broad. Areas of Cambridgeshire are among the most deprived in the U.K. and many of its schools struggle to make provision for music.

​Roots draws together all ages in teaching music. The vocal strand is led by internationally acclaimed educators, VOCES8; the group is Associate Ensemble at the University of Cambridge and on 18 January released its latest album, Enchanted Isle, on Decca Classics. The strand trains teachers, university and school students in the VOCES8 method, encouraging learning through participation in a series of vocal and rhythmic exercises. In turn, teachers and older students train younger students to become leaders in their own communities, developing their confidence as young leaders.

Cambridge Early Music is delighted to announce the appointment of Gawain Glenton as its new Renaissance Summer School Director.

Gawain is a specialist cornetto player whose work as a soloist and an ensemble musician takes him all over the world. He performs and records with many leading international groups and directors, such as Il Giardino Armonico, Concerto Palatino, l’Arpeggiata, Les Talens Lyriques, Concerto Italiano, I Fagiolini and The Taverner Consort. Gawain is a co-director of The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, with whom he has recorded several acclaimed CDs. These include ‘The Spy’s Choirbook’ with Alamire (winner of the 2015 Gramophone Award for Early Music), The Taverner Consort’s recording of the Western Wind Mass (winner of the 2016 Gramophone Award for Early Music), and ‘Monteverdi: The Other Vespers’ with I Fagiolini (Decca Classics, 2017).
​
Now based in the UK, Gawain spent several years in Basel studying with Bruce Dickey at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. As a result of these years abroad, Gawain is closely involved with many ‘next generation’ ensembles, such as Ensemble Leones and the Basel-based I Fedeli. In 2016 Gawain launched his new ensemble In Echo. Its debut CD, Music in a Cold Climate: Sounds of Hansa Europe, was released in January 2018 by Delphian Records to widespread acclaim.  

Cambridge Early Music is delighted to announce that it has recently joined REMA (the European Early Music Network).  As one of the UK’s leading providers of early music education, the promotion of historically informed performance has been at the centre of Cambridge Early Music since its creation in 1993. 
 
Dame Mary Archer, Chairman of Cambridge Early Music said: “We already enjoy inviting many European ensembles to perform in historic Cambridge venues at our annual Festival of the Voice and welcoming participants from across the globe to study at our renowned Summer Schools.  By joining REMA we are excited at building further exciting and stimulating partnerships and projects with our European colleagues.”
 
http://rema-eemn.net

REMA, the European Early Music Network, was created in Ambronay, France, in 2000.  REMA now boasts a membership of around 70 Early Music organisations from 21 countries. The network’s head office is based in France.

REMA has a dual objective: to promote Early Music and to help raise its profile in Europe.  REMA organises 3 to 4 meetings each year for its members, providing them with opportunities to exchange expertise, ideas, discuss their projects, form new networks and gain new contacts, as well as discuss current topics of interest. 

Some examples of what REMA does: 

• Every two years, REMA organises a European showcase for young talent in Early Music.
• REMA has created REMAPP, an application for smartphones in order to find early music concerts in Europe anywhere and at any time. 
• REMA regularly promotes its members’ activities.
• REMA is a highly active networks and regularly hosts conferences about early music.

Saturday 29 October 2016, 7:30pm
Great St Mary's Church, Cambridge, CB2 3PQ
 
In this enticing programme, devised to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, Stile Antico presents a beguiling selection of music connected with the life and work of England's greatest writer.
 
Shakespeare’s plays and poetry brim with references to music. Stile Antico explores rare surviving settings of his words by his contemporaries Thomas Morley and Robert Johnson, alongside music connected to the great events of his lifetime.
 
Shakespeare’s chief patron was the Protestant James I, for whom Tomkins and Weelkes wrote extravagant coronation anthems. However, Shakespeare also had intriguing links with recusant Catholicism, whose supreme musical spokesman was William Byrd. Completing this fascinating picture are brand new settings of Shakespeare’s poetry by Nico Muhly and Huw Watkins, composed especially for Stile Antico.
 
Stile Antico is a British ensemble now established as one of the most original and exciting new voices in its field and has an extensive and award-winning discography on the Harmonia Mundi label.
 
“The singing is staggeringly beautiful” (Sunday Times)
 
 
Thomas Morley  It was a lover and his lass
 
William Byrd  O Lord, make thy servant
John Dowland  ay, Love, if ever thou did'st find
 
John Wilbye  What needeth all this travail - O Fools! Can you not see?
Thomas Weelkes  Thule - The Andalusian Merchant
 
Huw Watkins  The Phoenix and the Turtle
William Byrd  Tristitia et anxietas
 
INTERVAL
 
Robert Johnson  Full fathom five
 
Thomas Tomkins  Be strong and of a good courage
Thomas Weelkes  O Lord Grant the King a Long Life
 
Thomas Weelkes  When David Heard
Robert Ramsey  Sleep, Fleshly Birth
 
Nico Muhly  Gentle Sleep
 
Orlando Gibbons  The Silver Swan
Orlando Gibbons  What is Our Life

​Tickets can be booked using our Events Calendar.  Early booking is advised.

31 July – 12 August 2016
 
Cambridge Early Music’s 2016 Summer Schools Showcase will run between Sunday 31 July – Friday 12 August.  Join us as we explore the riches of Spanish Baroque and Renaissance music.
 
HIGHLIGHTS:
 
THE PARLEY OF INSTRUMENTS
Spanish Folly
The Neapolitan violinist Nicola Matteis comes to London with Spanish and Neapolitan music in his luggage. The English viol player Henry Butler travels to Madrid, taking the English consort idiom with him; he inspires Andrea Falconieri in Naples to dedicate an English-style piece to him. Nicolaus á Kempis and Philipp van Wichel revel in the musical melting pot of the Spanish Netherlands. And everyone takes up toe-tapping Spanish tunes such as the Chacona and La Folia - the Spanish Folly.
4.00pm Sunday 31 July 2016, Little St Mary's Church, CB2 1QG
 
THE PARLEY OF INSTRUMENTS with Philippa Hyde
Father & Son, The Worlds of Alessandro & Domenico Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti worked in Naples for much of his career, while his son Domenico spent most of his life in Portugal and Spain.  This concert illuminates their rich musical worlds by contrasting their sensuous settings of the Salve Regina and their colourful sinfonias, scored for recorder, oboe and strings.
8.00pm Wednesday 3 August 2016, Jesus College Chapel, CB5 8BL
 
STUDENTS OF OUR 2016 BAROQUE SUMMER SCHOOL
7.30pm Saturday 6 August 2016, Jesus College Chapel, CB5 8BL
 
PHILIP THORBY & FRIENDS
Musica en Nuestros Tiempos
Join us for a programme of fireworks for viol, recorder and curtal featuring music by two virtuosos of their time: Diego Ortiz and Bartolomeo de Selma y Salverde.  Selma wrote music in a broadly Italian style, but with unmistakeable Spanish characteristics.  Although his music is in the new baroque style, he still wrote divisions on earlier vocal pieces (by composers such as Lassus and Palestrina) alongside modern canzonas, fantasias and sonatas.
4.00pm Sunday 7 August 2016, Jesus College Chapel, CB5 8BL
 
THE INTREPID ACADEMY with Jennie Cassidy
Orphénica Lyra                                                                           
This programme uses viol consort, vihuela, lute and guitar both in instrumental works in music from the late fifteenth-century Palace Song-book of Ferdinand and Isabella, and later songbooks. Texts range from bawdy villançicos to David’s lament for Absalom – all infused with the passion and occasional darkness of renaissance Spain. 
8.00pm Wednesday 10 August 2016, Jesus College Chapel, CB5 8BL
 
STUDENTS OF OUR 2016 RENAISSANCE SUMMER SCHOOL
7.30pm Friday 12 August 2016, Jesus College Chapel, CB5 8BL
 
Full programme details at www.CambridgeEarlyMusic.org
 
Box office: Cambridge Early Music
www.CambridgeEarlyMusic.org
Tel: 0333 666 3366 (TicketSource)
Tickets: from £5.00, FREE under-18s
Please note booking fees apply for online and telephone bookings.

SATURDAY 16 JULY, 7.30pm
Chapel, Downing College, Cambridge CB2 1DQ
** Please note change of venue**

It is now over 200 years since Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of France and still the “Corsican Ogre” both horrifies and fascinates us in equal measure. This ambivalence was also felt during his reign with some artists, such as Goethe, admiring Napoleon, others, were revolted by him, and some revised their opinions as history took it’s course.  One of the most famous volta-face has to be that of Ludwig van Beethoven and his violent re-dedication of this 3rd Symphony – “The Eroica”.

Anneke Scott (natural horn) and Geoffrey Govier (fortepiano) perform a programme bringing together works by composers whose lives were turned upside down by Napoleon’s advancing armies, including music by Ries, Kuhlau and Krufft alongside Beethoven's magnificent Variations on a theme from the Eroica Symphony.

This concert is proudly supported by The Howard Foundation.

​TICKETS: £5.00 to £18.00 (FREE to under-18s) from our Events Calendar.

PROGRAMME:
Friedrich Kuhlau (1786–1832) - Andante e Polacca

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) - Sonata for fortepiano and horn in F Op. 17
i) Allegro moderato
ii) Poco adagio, quasi andante
iii) Rondo, Allegro moderato

Ferdinand Ries (1784–1838) - Grande Sonata in F for fortepiano and horn, Op. 34
i) Larghetto, Allegro moderato
ii) Andante
iii) Rondo Allegro

INTERVAL

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) - Variations and Fugue in Eb Op. 35

Nikolaus von Krufft (1779–1818) Sonata for fortepiano and horn in E major.
i) Allegro moderato
ii) Andante espressivo
iii) Rondo “alla Polacca”

Although Francis Bacon, 17th century philosopher, statesman and visionary, is widely regarded as the father of modern science, his investigations into the nature of sound are little known. He was intrigued by seemingly magical effects like echoes and sympathetic vibration and sought to explain them through a series of experiments in, and observations of, sound.

Combining modern sound technology with ancient instruments, The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments explore the aural illusions that so intrigued Francis Bacon and our 17th century forbears with fresh interpretations of 17th century music linked to each other by newly composed pieces. The performers play unusual and historically appropriate instruments including the mysterious violone, the jangling bray harp and the little known viola bastarda.

You can find out more about the project by watching this YouTube video.
“What the Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments have concocted in 'Sound House' is a wondrous journey through a realm of unimaginable sonic possibilities; travel with them, and I guarantee that you will never think of sound in the same way again” – Early Music Today
Saturday 25 June 2016, 7.30pm, Wesley Methodist Church, CB1 1LG
THE PERFORMERS
Jon Banks: santouri, gothic harp, percussion
Liam Byrne: lirone, treble viol
Jean Kelly: gothic bray harp, triple harp
Alison McGillivray: violone, viola bastarda
Jon Nicholls: sound designer and composer
Devised and directed by Clare Salaman

TICKETS: £5.00 to £23.00 (FREE under-18s) from 0333 666 3366 or online using our Events Calendar.

​A celebration of choral repertoire in the hallowed chapels of St John’s College, Trinity College and Jesus College Cambridge, our 2016 Festival of the Voice (12-15 May) showcases exceptional home-grown talent which is now internationally regarded.  Recognised as a hub of historically-informed performance and education, this year's Festival celebrates core composers Bach, Monteverdi and Gesualdo contrasting them with works by Schubert, Beethoven and Ligeti.
 
Our Artist-in-Residence is star a cappella group VOCES8.  Winners of Classic FM’s Album of the Year 2015 for Lux, VOCES8 includes two Trinity alumni.  Acclaimed tenor James Gilchrist is ex King’s, and The Gesualdo Six’s director, composer and organist Owain Park, is at Trinity.  This year we also welcome Belgium stars Vox Luminis and the Three Medieval Tenors who explore Conductus, the forgotten song of the Middle Ages.

Especially for festival week, services by the world renowned choirs of St John’s College and King’s College feature works by Palestrina, Vivaldi and Bach.

TICKETS: £5.00 to £23.00 (FREE under-18s) from 0333 666 3366 or online using our Events Calendar.