Our prestigious 2016 Festival of the Voice will run between Thursday 12 – Sunday 15 May.  It will showcase many of the world's finest early music artists including: Vox Luminis, Voces8, The Gesualdo Six, Three Medieval Tenors and James Gilchrist, who will perform an eclectic range of music from medieval Conductus, Monteverdi, Lassus, Bach, Schubert and many others in some of Cambridge’s most beautiful and historic venues.

Highlights:
VOX LUMINIS
LIGHT & SHADOW: Music at the time of Elizabeth I
The award-winning Belgium vocal ensemble Vox Luminis explores the rich heritage of music from the Protestant tradition and showcases some of the finest polyphonic masters from the era, including Tallis, Sheppard, Morley, Ramsey and Weelkes.
Thursday 12 May at 8.00pm, St John’s College Chapel, Cambridge
 
VOCES8
BACH MOTETS
Bach’s motets are considered to be amongst his greatest output both as artistic works and technical showcases. In this concert, four motets are programmed alongside music by Giovannii Gabrieli, Praetorius and Felix Mendelssohn, who was instrumental in the revival of Bach’s music.
Friday 13 May at 7.30pm, Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge

Full programme details are available at www.cambridgeearlymusic.org/festival-of-the-voice.

Book your tickets now using our Events Calendar.  

Please note that we will be closed for Christmas from 19 December 2015 and will reopen on Thursday 7 January 2016.

From all the team at Cambridge Early Music, we hope you have a happy Christmas and New Year!  

Piero della Francesca, The Nativity​ (1470-5)

Peter Holman (course director & continuo), Judy Tarling (upper strings), Mark Caudle (lower strings), Gail Hennessy (wind), Philip Thorby (voices)
 
Join us for a celebration of the riches of Spanish Baroque music. The main pieces studied in this year’s course will be the magnificent Missa Scala Aretina (1702) by the Barcelona composer Franciso Valls (c.1672-1747), famous at the time for its ground-breaking dissonances, and the Requiem Mass written by José de Nebra (1702-68), written in 1758 in memory of the Portuguese queen Maria Barbara. Both are richly scored in the polychoral Spanish manner for several groups of singers and orchestra. During the course and the associated concerts we will study and perform a range of music written in Spain itself and its possessions, Naples, the southern Netherlands and the New World, by Joan Cererols, Sebastián Durón, José de Torres, Alessandro & Domenico Scarlatti, Francesco Durante and Leonardo Leo and others.

Philip Thorby (course director & choir), David Hatcher (viols), Emma Murphy (recorders), Lynda Sayce (lutes), Frances Eustace (loud winds)
 
Ferdinand of Aragón and Isabella of Castile ruled jointly over Spain after their marriage in 1469.  It was their sometimes brutal defence of their faith which led Pope Alexander VI in 1494 to grant them the title “Los Reyes Catolicos”. The flavour of the court - in turn pious, romantic and bawdy - is captured perfectly in the words and music of the court song-book, the Cancionero Musical de Palacio, which is the natural starting point for our week's study. We will follow the trail of Spanish music through the sixteenth century as it leads us from Spain itself to elsewhere in Europe, from the Cancionero via villancicos and vihuela-songs by Narvaez and Mudarra and motets by Guerrero and Morales to the monumental six-part  Requiem (or Offitium Defunctorum) by Victoria.
 
For full details and booking information, please see our Summer School pages.

Ring in Christmas and the New Year in style with Joglaresa and chase out the chill from the Celtic fringes of Europe with traditional carols, lullabies, dances tunes and wassails from Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales.  

Belinda Sykes voice, bagpipes
Sianed Jones fidel, voice
Angela Hicks voice, harp
May Robertson fidel, voice
Louise Anna Duggan percussion, dulcimer, voice
Guy Schalom percussion
 
FRIDAY 18 DECEMBER 2015, 7.30pm
GREAT ST MARY’S CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE, CB2 3PQ

Book tickets using our Events Calendar.
 
“Thrilling and haunting” – The Times
“Sound scholarship, a combined experience of many musical cultures, and a spirited delivery of stories” – Early Music Today
“I was blown away by their charm and originality” – The Scotsman

PROGRAMME
On Christmas Night  Traditional, England
Cuncti simus concanentes  Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, Spain C14th
Now Bring Us in Good Ale  C15th England
As I in Hoary Winter’s Night  Robert Southwell (1561 - 1595)
Wel dyma'r bore i gyd  Traditional, Wales
Nova stella apparita  Laudario di Firenze, Italy C14th
Angelus emittitur  Piae Cantiones, C16th Scandinavia
Ebbas Brudpolska (instrumental)  Ola Bäckström, b. 1959
In dulci jubilo  Piae Cantiones, C16th Scandinavia
Ave donna santissima  Laudario di Cortona, Italy C13th
Orientis partibus  C13th France
  
INTERVAL
 
The Boar’s Head (instrumental realisation)  C16th England
Personent hodie  Piae Cantiones, C16th Scandinavia
Puer nobis nascitur (instrumental realisation)  Piae Cantiones, C16th Scandinavia
Gabryell that angell bryght  C15th England
The Boar’s Head  C16th England
The Gower Wassail  Traditional wassail from The Gower Peninsular
Sola fusti senlleira  Cantiga de Santa Maria, C13th Spain
Li lai de la pastourelle (instrumental realisation)  C13th France
Beata divites  Anonymous medieval parody of the Beatitudes
Veritas  Roman de Fauvel, France C14th
Down in yon Forest  C16th England, Traditional Appalachian
Magno gaudens gaudio  C13th England