The Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) is going topical this year. Never really un-topical, previous festivals have explored our roots, our relationship to the earth including climate change, this year the festival is exploring the theme of Europe.
Running from 26 October to 11 November 2018 in venues in and around Brighton, the festival is bringing 700 years of music from 17 European countries to Brighton, exploring Britain’s long and often tempestuous relationship with the rest of the European continent from medieval times onwards.
One highlight is the festival's staging of a double bill of Baroque operas at The Old Market in Hove, where director Thomas Guthrie will be comparing and contrasting Monteverdi's Ballo delle ingrate with one of the first operas in English, Blow's Venus and Adonis. The productions will involve some of the best young vocal talent, as well as street dance choreographed by J P Omari.
Nurturing young talent is something for which the festival is well-known, each year a group of artists are mentored on its Early Music Live! scheme, and this year features not only a showcase for this year's artists and ensembles, but brings back ensembles which featured on the scheme in past years including the Fieri Consort, Lux Musicae London and Flauti d’echo.
And BREMF wouldn't be BREMF without a performance from the wonderful BREMF Community Choir, this year it is joining with the Spanish ensemble Resonet for music from the 13th-century Lewes Priory Breviary, whilst another festival ensemble the BREMF Consort of Voices will be performing music from 'Reformation Remainers' Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.
Royal weddings pop up too, with music for an 18th-century Swedish royal wedding, and a programme looking at Queen Elizabeth I's tricky marriage negotiations and prevarications with various European princes, from soprano Elin Manahan Thomas (best known for singing at the recent wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex) and lutenist Elizabeth Kenny. Whilst the English Cornett and Sackbutt's programme Legal Aliens looks at the music of Italian families like the Bassanos who lived in Tudor London (including Aemelia Bassano who may have been Shakespeare's Dark Lady of the Sonnets).
The final event of the festival is on 11 November 2018, so rather appropriately it is Peace in Europe:A Concert for Armistice Day with music by Handel, De la Lande, Zelenka, Blow, Charpentier and Purcell from The BREMF Players (leader Alison Bury), The BREMF Singers (director John Hancorn) and soloists from BREMF's Early Music Live! including Elizabeth Adams, Nancy Cole, Helen Charlston (winner of this year's Handel Singing Competition), Josh Cooter and Tim Dickinson.
Full details from the BREMF website.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts this month
-
Wagner: Das Rheingold - Ingeborg Børch as Fricka, Keel Watson as Wotan - Regents Opera 2022 (Photo Steve Gregson) On Sunday 21st May 2023, R...
-
Halevy: La Tempesta - conducted by Francesco Cilluffo at Wexford Festival Opera 2022 (Photo: Clive Barda ArenaPAL) Conductor Francesco Cill...
-
Wagner: Die Walküre - Keel Watson (Wotan) - Regents Opera 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregson Regents Opera's new production of Wagner's Die...
-
Wagner: Die Walküre - Justine Viani (Sieglinde), Catharine Woodward (Brünnhilde), the Valkyries - Regents Opera 2023 (Photo: Steve Gregso...
-
Jataneel Banerjee's Gaṅgā at Tete-a-Tete Opera Festival in 2022 (Photo Claire Shovelton) Composer Jataneel Banerjee's new chamber o...
-
Donizetti: L'esule di Roma - Nicola Alaimo, Albina Shagimuratova, Carlo Rizzi, Britten Sinfonia - Opera Rara at Cadogan Hall (Photo Ru...
-
Dragon Voices: The giant Celtic horns of Ancient Europe; John Kenny; Delphian Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Nov 22 2016 Star r...
-
Cautionary Tales - National Opera Studio with Opera North at Wilton's Music Hall (Photo Malcolm I Johnson) Cautionary Tales : Judith We...
-
Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud A Dangerous Obsession: The Relationship of Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud ; Ben Vonberg-Clark, Julien...
-
Carys Davies, a previous member of WNO Youth Opera and current RWCMD student, in WNO’s main scale production of The Magic Flute . The step b...
No comments:
Post a Comment