In order to enhance audience experience and in furtherance of our educational aims, we hold pre-concert talks before some of our concerts. Here we delve deeper into the historical and cultural context of the music, in an attempt to broaden our understanding before hearing the works being performed.

​Below is a list of previous pre-concert talks:

Eccles, Semele
Professor Peter Holman and Dr Alan Howard
Two talks given before the AAM/CHOC/CEM performance of Eccles’s opera on 26 November 2019

Sisters of Ferrara, Vespers
Professor Laurie Stras, University of Southampton
Vespers preceded by a talk setting the scene on 15 September 2019 in the context of the FOCEM workshop

City voices, Courtly airs
Professor Richard Freedman, Haverford College
In the context of the Renaissance Summer School concert given by the Courtiers of Grace on 7 August 2019

Marc-Antoine Charpentier & François Couperin
Professor Graham Sadler, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and visiting Research Fellow in the Faculty of Music at Oxford University
Delivered before a concert by The Parley of Instruments on 31 July 2019 in the context of the Baroque Summer School

Handel and His Rivals
Dr Tim Eggington
Fellow Librarian of Queens’ College, Cambridge
Delivered before a concert by The Parley of Instruments on 1 August 2018 in the context of the Baroque Summer School

The Fugal Connection
Professor Julian Rushton
Emeritus West Riding Professor of Music, University of Leeds
Delivered before a concert by The Revolutionary Drawing Room on 28th October 2017

Baroque Music in Venice
John Julius Norwich 
Delivered before a concert by The Parley of Instruments entitled ‘Venetian Vespers: Monteverdi and his Followers’ on 2nd August 2017

What did Shakespeare know about music?
Dr Jason Scott-Warren
Lecturer in the English Faculty at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College
Delivered before a concert by Stile Antico entitled ‘The Touches of Sweet Harmony’: The Musical World of William Shakespeare on 29th October 2016