The Continuo Foundation awards £108,000 in its 12th round of grants

The Continuo Foundation recently announced its 12th round of grants, awarding £105,000 to 28 Early Music Projects, supporting 68 concerts in 46 locations along with five recordings. Since being founded in 2020, the Foundation has raised and awarded £1.3 million, supporting 885 concerts in 289 different locations across the UK, alongside 63 recording projects, with 40 albums released so far.

Five emerging ensembles received first-time awards, and projects include a period-instrument Passion in Northern Ireland, a pioneering female composer of string quartets and music from Anne Boleyn’s manuscript.

All five of the first-time recipients are emerging ensembles, formed since 2020, and are among ten recently formed groups supported in this round which collectively received 40% of the total funding. Alongside opportunities to perform, the awards fund recordings and creation of video material that can help young musicians establish a professional presence and secure future work.

A grant makes possible the Ulster Consort's ambitious plan to performing Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Northern Ireland, where opportunities to hear this masterpiece are scarce and relatively few local period-instrument players are available.  Also in Northern Ireland, the grant awarded to Sestina Music will bring Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 to Belfast, combining Early Music specialists with its Next Generation Artists and, for the first time, local choristers from St George’s, St Polycarp’s and St Peter’s church choirs.

The Cambridge String Quartet’s Tales of Maddalena turns to little-known composer Maddalena Lombardini, whose six quartets appeared in 1769, while the genre was still taking shape. At King’s College, Cambridge, a display of first-edition parts will accompany the music. The grant will help pay for professional filming, giving the performance a further life as material with which the quartet can introduce its work to promoters and audiences. Fontanella Recorder Quartet’s A Falcon Fallen follows Anne Boleyn’s turbulent life through music from the manuscript associated with her, held at the Royal College of Music.

Ardour Baroque’s world-premiere recording of trio sonatas by Antonio Luigi Baldassini, will place the little-known Roman composer alongside Corelli and Handel. Queen Victoria’s Consort and the West Gallery Music Association will be recreating English parish music from around 1840, using instruments including the serpent, keyed bugle and English bass horn.

Full details from The Continuo Foundation's website.