This year's Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival takes Miracles & Mysteries as its theme. For one captivating weekend, 22 to 24 May 2026, Beverley's visitors and residents will be able to enjoy concerts, experience talks by experts and take part in workshops. Miracles & Mysteries intertwines the story of St John of Beverley, one of the most powerful miracle-workers in England in medieval times, with music from a selection of visiting ensembles.
The festival opens with French instrumental ensemble Près de votre oreille directed by gamba specialist Robin Pharo in Lighten Mine Eies, featuring music by William Lawes who enjoyed a brief but dazzling career as a singer and lutenist to Charles I. The concert is based around music from the ensemble's 2025 album [see my review]. Their appearance is part of a European tour supported by the Centre national de la musique with the support of Institut Français du Royaume-Uni.
Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars highlight the festival theme of miracles and mysteries through music inspired by the stories of the life of Christ, beginning with a depiction of Christ’s birth as envisaged by two of the Renaissance’s most renowned composers, Gabrieli and Victoria. The Telling return to the East Riding Theatre with Purcell: The Musical, a drama by Claire Norburn based on the life of Purcell, featuring assorted instrumental and vocal compositions by him, from bawdy theatre ballads and joyful celebrations of love to slow airs and numbers from his semi-operas.
The festival is especially delighted to welcome a host of emerging young talent, with three NCEM Platform Artists. Pseudonym perform 18th-century French music in a sophisticated intermingling of Italian virtuosity and Polish folk rhythms, with works by Couperin, Rameau and Telemann in their programme, Discret et distrait. Intesa duo (viols and voice) celebrate the union between Armenian and Italian traditions in Voices of San Lazzaro. Medieval ensemble Rune presents Lost in Contemplation, with four remarkable medieval miracle stories paired with music from across Europe.
Still focusing on young artists, the final visitors to the festival are the Bellot Ensemble, newly appointed New Generation Baroque Ensemble. Their programme, From the Sound of Battle to the Silence of Peace presents a vivid journey from the clamour of conflict to the quiet miracle of peace, with music by Lawes, Schmelzer, Biber and Falconieri.
Full details from the festival website.
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