The annual Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival (22 – 26 May 2013), one of the cultural highlights in the East Riding of Yorkshire, presents a celebration of music from the medieval to the baroque by some of the world’s finest early music ensembles and performers.
This year’s programme features internationally acclaimed harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s award-winning educational team; the fun-loving Carnival Band with singer Vivien Ellis and the outstanding vocal ensemble Gallicantus.
Delma Tomlin, Festival Director says: “We are delighted to be able to welcome some of the world’s truly great early music specialists to this beautiful town. It is particularly exciting that, for the first time, students from Beverley Girls High School and Beverley Grammar School will work with members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment from Monday 20 May to prepare their own performance of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen directed James Redwood on Thursday 23 May.
And we are very pleased to welcome the University of Hull Early Music Ensemble, directed for the first time by Žak Ozmo, whose ‘Flights of Fancy’ programme features some of the most entertaining and uncommonly beautiful music of the seventeenth-century.”
2013 Highlights include:
▪ Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) From Twig to Bow
Join members of the outstanding Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment for a fascinating exploration of the development of string, wind and keyboard instruments over the centuries and find out how composers used instruments in a variety of contexts.
Wednesday 22 May, 7.30pm, Toll Gavel United Church, Toll Gavel, Beverley
▪ Leah Stuttard The Wool Merchant and The Harp
Medieval harpist, singer, composer and arranger, Leah Studdard, presents a beautifully crafted lecture recital which tells the intriguing story of George Cely, a late fifteenth century Wool Merchant. Leah’s recital features the gorgeous songs and lively dance tunes Cely played for the discerning gentry.
Thursday 23 May, 1.00pm, Beverley Guildhall
▪ University of York Baroque Ensemble, Chamber Choir and Music Education Group
Beverley Grammar School and Beverley Girls’ High School
The Fairy Queen Revisited
Throughout the week of 20 May members of the OAE, music students and members of the University of York Music Education Group will work with year 7 and 8 pupils from Beverley Grammar School and Beverley Girls’ High School on a collaborative opera project based on Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen led by composer James Redwood. The students will explore themes from the opera and Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, on which the opera is based, to compose their own songs, drama and movement, as well as learning to sing some of Purcell’s own wonderful music from this ‘Restoration Spectacular’.
Thursday 23 May, 7.30pm, St Mary’s Church, North Bar Within, Beverley
▪ Le Jardin Secret In Splendid Disgrace: Music for Exiled Kings
Le Jardin Secret, winners of the first prize and the audience prize in the 2007 Early Music Network International Young Artists’ Competition, features the beautifully expressive voice of Elizabeth Dobbin soprano and Sofie Vanden Eynde’s exquisite theorbo playing. The ensemble will explore the glorious music of Louis XIV’s Roman music master, Innocenzo Fede, along the transalpine, international and local music which coloured the rich musical life of court.
Friday 24 May, 1.00pm, The Quire, Beverley Minster
▪ Gallicantus Music of Penitence
One of the UK’s most outstanding vocal ensembles perform a powerful programme which combines Thomas Tallis’ beautifully crafted Lamentations with Orlande de Lassus’ dramatic tour de force Lagrime di San Pietro.
Friday 24 May, 7.30pm, St Mary’s Church, North Bar Within, Beverley
▪ Trevor Pinnock Journeys through Music
Internationally renowned harpsichordist, conductor and founder of the English Concert, presents a programme inspired by the travels of the great organist and composer Antonio Cabezon across Europe in the 1550s, featuring music by Cabezon, Byrd, Bull, JS Bach and Frescobaldi.
Saturday 25 May, 1.30pm, Toll Gavel United Church, Toll Gavel, Beverley
▪ University of Hull Early Music Ensemble Flights of Fancy
Žak Ozmo directs this talented young ensemble in a programme of striking chamber music by the seventeenth century composers Marini and Merula, haunting melodies by Monteverdi and sprightly dances by Zanetti and Garsi.
Saturday 25 May, 3.00pm, The Quire, Beverley Minster
▪ The Carnival Band with Vivien Ellis voice
Chapel and Tavern ‘Choristers and Carousers in Early Modern Britain’
A unique double venue experience which marries Chapel and Tavern music by moving musicians and audience from The Angel in Butcher Row for rousing performances of catches, ballads, theatre songs and dance tunes to Toll Gavel United Church to experience the reflective songs for private devotion and the enthusiastic music of the church gallery bands.
Saturday 25 May from 6.30pm, The Angel Tavern, Butcher Row, Beverley. Toll Gavel United Church from 7.45pm. Late night back at the Tavern
Tickets: £5.00 to £25.00 are available from the NCEM at St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York YO1 9TL. Telephone: 01904 658338. Email: boxoffice@ncem.co.uk
For full programme details visit: www.ncem.co.uk/bemf
