Bringers of Dreams: BREMF Emerging Artists announced for the 2026 festival

This year's Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF), Bringers of Dreams, runs from 2 to 25 October 2026 with events focused on the four weekends. 

The BREMF Emerging Artist scheme is an important part of the Festival. As well as offering offering performance opportunities in the Festival, BREMF Emerging Artists are supported with advice, mentoring and training opportunities as well as a 4-day residency at Hawkwood College in Gloucestershire, offering the opportunity for development and growth. Alumni of the scheme are very much part of the BREMF ‘family’ and continue to be supported with references, opportunities and collaborations.

This year's BREMF Emerging Artist ensembles are the five-part early music vocal ensemble Bruegel Consort, Les Acolytes, an ensemble specialising in French music of the 17th and 18th centuries, the instrumental ensemble Themelion, and Thow Cornwall Duo. All will be appearing at the BREMF Emerging Artists ensembles showcase and clubnight on Saturday 10 October at St Paul's Church.

This year's BREMF Emerging Artist vocalists are sopranos Ruby Skilbeck and Emma Warner, contralto Laura Toomey, and tenor Hugo Williamson. All will be involved in the performance of Purcell's The Fairy Queen with the London Handel Players on Friday 9 October 2026.

Other highlights of the festival include City of Dreams: a Florentine extravaganza with the Monteverdi String Band, BREMF Consort of Voices and The Royal Sackbut Collective (2025 BREMF Emerging Artists), Spiritato's The Planets (Pre-imagined): an orchestral journey through the 17th-century solar system, The Fine Hand in a programme of European and North American Ballads, and Lassus's Lamentations with Utopia Ensemble.

Dowland Day will feature a lunchtime concert with tenor Kieran White [see my review of his recent disc of Dowland and Danyel] and The Republic of Viols, an early evening concert with Dowland’s Foundry and a late night concert by soprano Ruby Hughes and lutenist Jonas Nordberg.

Full details from the BREMF website. 

BREMF celebrates late artistic director Deborah Roberts & creates fund as a way of continuing her inspirational legacy

Deborah Roberts

BREMF (Brighton Early Music Festival) is celebrating the life of its late artistic director (and co-founder) Deborah Roberts with a concert at St Martin's Church, Brighton on 9 February 2025. 

Performers taking part including BREMF Live alumni and BREMF performing groups including Apollo's Cabinet, Voice, Ensemble Tempus, Rune, Musica Secreta and Celestial Sirens, plus BREMF Consort of Voices, BREMF 415 Workshop Orchestra, and BREMF Community Choir.

The music has been selected to feature repertoire that Deborah loved and performed, including music by Josquin, Monteverdi, Byrd, and William Boyce plus scenes from Francesca Caccini's Ruggiero and Blow's Venus & Adonis, Cozzolani's Magnificat a 8 and Striggio's Mass in 40 parts.

The event is almost full, though there will be a limited number of places available on the door, see website for details, but do consider donating to BREMF in Deborah's memory (details on the website).All donations will be added to the Deborah Roberts Memorial Fund, which will be used to support the projects that Deborah championed and loved as a way of continuing her inspirational legacy.

Music and movement: new musicians in Liverpool, new artistic directors in Brighton & George Jackson continues in Amarillo

Domingo Hindoyan and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in 2022

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has welcomed six new musicians into its ranks, whilst the Brighton Early Music Festival has announced the appointment of new co-artistic directors, and the young British conductor, George Jackson has had his contract renewed as music director of Amarillo Symphony Orchestra for a further three years.

On 17 October 2024 Domingo Hindoyan conducted the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in Mahler’s First Symphony, Juan Bautista Plaza’s Vigilia and Strauss’ Four Last Songs with soprano Sarah Wegener. The opening concert in the orchestra's 2024/25 season, it also represented the first concert with the orchestra for six musicians being welcomed into the ranks - Fábio Brum, who joins as section leader trumpet, Miquel Ramos Salvadó as section leader clarinet, Nadia Debono as associate principal viola, Peter Liang as No.4 1st violin and Anna Crawford and Angus McCall joining the cello section. 

Brazilian trumpeter Fábio Brum is a former member of the Canadian Brass and Principal Trumpet for both the Royal Seville Symphony Orchestra and the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. Miquel Ramos Salvadó has regularly performed in orchestras such the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Tonhalle Zürich, Liceu Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonieorchester Basel, and Festival Strings Luzern. Maltese viola player Nadia Debono's experience spans multiple genres and styles, including baroque and non-classical. She was co-leader of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, and Solo Principal Viola with the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, in Norway.

Full details from the orchestra's website.

As many people will know, Deborah Roberts the co-founder and artistic director of Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) sadly passed away earlier this year. BREMF has announced the appointment of two new co-artistic directors, soprano Hannah Ely and recorder-player Olwen Foulkes. Both were previously part of the BREMF Live young artists scheme,they have both performed at the Festival in musical ensembles and opera productions, and have mentored other artists.;

Hannah Ely is a soprano specialising in Renaissance and Baroque music. In 2012 she founded the Fieri Consort, where she explores innovative performances of Italian madrigals, which has led her to her current venture on ornamentation in madrigals in the duo Accenti, as well as with the Monteverdi String Band, and she was recently appointed music director of Purbeck Arts Week Festival. Olwen Foulkes is a recorder player, curator and educator with a love of eighteenth-century chamber music, and a research focus of the early eighteenth-century London music scene. In 2019 she founded her chamber music group Ensemble Augelletti who are current BBC New Generation Baroque Ensemble and City Music Foundation Artists. She is Assistant Curator at Handel Hendrix House where she curates exhibition content, and she is an academic lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music.

Full details from the BREMF website.

Over in the USA, in Amarillo, Texas, George Jackson began his tenure as music director of the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra in September 2022, leading the orchestra into its centenary season of 2023/24. He has now had his tenure renewed for a further three years. Under Jackson's artistic direction, the Symphony has experienced a surge in audience engagement, thanks to captivating programs that showcase the diverse cultural landscape of the Texas Panhandle. The orchestra has developed from relatively humble beginnings in 1924 to become a vital cultural force in the Texas Panhandle, serving a vast region spanning 25,000 square miles and beyond.

George Jackson leads the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra's 100th season opener at Hodgetown in Amarillo, August 2023 (Photo: Michael Cuviello/Amarillo Globe-News from Amarillo Globe-News)

George Jackson's performances in the UK that we have caught include La Boheme at Opera Holland Park [see my review], celebrating the 85th anniversary of The Beano with the BBC Concert Orchestra including the premiere of Gavin Higgins' new percussion concerto [see my review], Janacek's The Excursions of Mr Broucek at Grange Park Opera [see my review], Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at Opera Holland Park [see my review]. In 2021, I sat down for a chat with George Jackson, read more in my interview, 'The balance between a perfect art form & giving people what they want'. 

Full details from the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra's website.

BREMF is back: Autumn festival returns with over 20 events

After three years of disruption, experimentation, and adapting to circumstances, Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) returns this Autumn in full pre-pandemic style with more than 20 events during September and October 2023. The main festival runs from 13 to 28 October 2023 and highlights include The Gesualdo Six and Fretwork in their music drama Secret Byrd and The Whispering Dome, a large scale multi-media event featuring a varied range of traditional and early music from Europe, Morocco and West Africa tracing routes followed by migrating swallows.

Other events include Musica Secreta in Mother, Sister, Daughter, music and intriguing stories of women across the ages, including newly discovered music, and a new commission by Joanna Marsh, Fieri Consort in The Excellence of Women, newly discovered madrigals of Maddalena Casulana alongside works by another of Italy’s greatest composers, Barbara Strozzi, La Fonte Music in works by 14th century composer Antonio Zacara da Teramo. Visiting groups include Ensemble Hesperi, Helen Charlston, mezzo-soprano & Toby Carr, theorbo, and the festival ends with BREMF Players, Baroque Collective Singers and soloists in Bach and Buxtehude.

Before the main festival, a series of pre-events run from 16 September offering opportunities to take part in choral and instrumental workshops, OAE TOTS family concerts, and a ceilidh celebrating the music of John Playford’s The English Dancing Master. BREMF will be popping up around the city too, with free performances of music by William Byrd and a baroque-ground-bass-meets-jazz fusion event.

Full details from the BREMF website.

BREMF's Autumn Festival is back, for the first time since 2019.

Secret Byrd - the Gesualdo Six (Photo Mark Allen)

For the first time since 2019, the Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) is presenting an Autumn festival, across two weekends from 13 October to 28 October 2023.

The festival opens with Secret Byrd, the Gesualdo Six and Fretwork in an immersive music drama based around Byrd's masses performed by candlelight. And continuing the theatrical theme, Whispering Dome will be a large scale multi-media event involving BREMF choirs, local schools and musicians from Morocco and West Africa, devised by Jeremy Avis

The Fieri Consort is presenting a programme based around the music of two Renaissance women, Maddalena Casulana, the first female composer to have had a whole book of her music printed and published in the history of western music, and Barbara Strozzi, who published eight volumes of her own music, and had more secular music in print than any other composer of the era. And continuing the female theme, Musica Secreta & Celestial Sirens present Mother, Sister Daughter, music and stories of women.

Other visitors include mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston and lutenist Toby Carr in their Battle Cry: She Speaks programme, and La Fonte Musica from Italy in a programme entitled Musical Enigmas.

There will be a BREMF Live! Showcase featuring emerging early music ensembles as well as a BREMF  Live! Clubnight.

The festival ends with Buxtehude's Membra Jesu nostri performed by the BREMF Singers & Players and the Arculo Consort of Viols.

Full details from the BREMF website.

Back indoors: BREMF returns with an action-packed Autumn weekend

Joglaresa, who appear at BREMF on 24/10/21
(Photo Andrew Mason)

Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) has kept the faith these last 18 months via on-line offerings and outdoor Summer concerts, now BREMF is back with an indoor, in-person concert series from 20 to 24 October 2021 taking place in St George’s Church, Kemptown and St Martin’s Church, Lewes Road.

The programme includes Clare Norburn's latest concert-play, I Spie, which posits a dramatic spying past for composer John Dowlen, being presented by Norburn's ensemble The Telling (20/10/2021), the festival's own BREMF Consort of Voices in a programme of music by two composers who both died in 1521, Josquin and Fayrfax (21/10/2021), Canzona in French Baroque music by Rameau, Clérambault, Marais and Leclair (22/10/2021), the showcase of emerging talent, BREMF Live! (23/10/2021) and Joglaresa in medieval cantigas telling of weird and wonderful miracles performed by the Virgin Mary (24/10/2021).

For those who are not ready to return to live events yet (or who simply prefer to watch from the comfort of their own home), the Festival is also offering an online BREMF@home edition running 19 – 28 November. BREMF@home events will offer edited and enhanced highlights from BREMF’s Summer and Autumn seasons plus interviews with artists and other bonus content.

Full details from the BREMF website.

Bringing live music back to Brighton: BREMF's Midsummer Season

The Royal Spa, Queens Park (Photo Simon Carey)

In normal circumstances the Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) would take place in the Autumn, with perhaps a few events during the rest of the year, but this year is far from normal. So, to celebrate the relaxation of rules BREMF is holding a Midsummer Season of outdoor events. There will be eight events, taking place at the Royal Spa in Queen’s Park - a regency portico which is the only remaining part of the Royal Spa complex, now in the grounds of the Royal Spa Nursery School.

The season begins on Saturday 5 June 2021 with The Forest of Mythical Breezes, the duo Flaugissimo in a programme of French baroque music and dance based on classical myths and audience members are invited to bring picnic chairs or rugs and a picnic to enjoy during the performance. The season continues with North Indian dance and storytelling (6 June), renaissance polyphony from the BREMF Consort of Voices, conductor Deborah Roberts, celebrating the Josquin and Robert Fayrfax centenaries (12 June), music from 17th century London and Italy with Lux Musicae London and the Fieri Consort (13 June & 3 July), Pocket Sinfonia and Thomas Guthrie in A Midsummer Night's Dream combining Mendelssohn and Shakespeare (20 June), the Monteverdi String Band's Monteverdi Re-imagined (3 July) and highlights from the earliest opera by a female composer – Francesca Caccini’s La liberazione di Ruggiero (11 July).

Full details from the BREMF website.

Marco da Gagliano's La Dafne revived at BREMF

The Florentine composer Marco da Gagliano (1582-1643) was there at the beginning of opera alongside Peri, Caccini and Monteverdi though Gagliano's operas today barely get name check. But the Brighton Early Music Festival is changing that with a brief out of festival appearance at the Old Market in Hove this weekend (four performances on 8 & 9 February 2020) performing Gagliano's opera La Dafne.

Marco da Gagliano spent most of his working life in Florence, writing music for the Medici, but he also made a trip to Mantua (there were links between the ruling families of the two cities and the Medici lent the Duke of Mantua singers for the 1607 performances of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo). Whilst in Mantua, Gagliano wrote La Dafne, a setting of a pre-existing libretto by Ottavioo Rinuccini which had originally been set by Jacopo Peri in 1597. Peri's La Dafne was the first work to be actually called an opera, the work is now lost apart from a handful of excerpts.

Contemporaries praised Gagliano's way of setting text as being close to speech, which was one of the aims of the Florentine Camerata where the musical experiments of the composers and aristocrats who were members led to the creation of opera, intended as a re-creation of Greek drama. Marco da Galiano's teacher, Luca Bati, was one of the original members of the Florentine Camerata.

Gagliano's La Dafne was written for the wedding of Prince Francesco Gonzaga of Mantua and Margherita of Savoy, a wedding which also gave rise to Monteverdi's lost opera L'Arianna. It seems that the Gonzagas certainly knew how to celebrate, and to spend money. The advantage of operas written for grand occasions was that, sometimes, having the work published was part of the showing off. We are lucky in this respect with Monteverdi's L'Orfeo and Gagliano's La Dafne whereas Monteverdi's L'Arianna, though wildly popular at the time, is now lost.

BREMF's performances of the opera will be staged by Thomas Guthrie and feature tenor Rory Carver (who sang the title role in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo at BREMF in 2017, see my review) and soprano Angela Hicks (who sang La statue in Rameau's Pygmalion at BREMF in 2017, see my review) plus Elspeth Piggott, Sebastian Maclaine and Geoff Williams, with the BREMF Early Opera Orchestra featuring musicians from BREMF Live!, music directors Deborah Roberts and Oliver Webber.



Full details from the BREMF website.

Metamorphosis - Transformation and wonder through 700 years of Music at the Brighton Early Music Festival

BREMF 2018 - Beauty, Love & Death @ The Old Market, Brighton - Photo Robert Piwko

The Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) opens next week with two weeks of events from 25 October to 10 November 2019 under the theme of Metamorphosis - Transformation and wonder through 700 years of Music. For the opening weekend, there is the chance to hear Musica Secreta and Celestial Sirens in Darkness into Light exploring music written by and for nuns with the first performance in modern times of Lamentations by the French Renaissance composer Antoine Brumel (best known for his 12-part Earthquake Mass), and festival artistic director Deborah Roberts conducting the BREMF Consort of Voices (one of three different choirs which BREMF organises) in a programme which explores how composers re-worked and transformed the music of others, ending with a modern arrangement of Thomas Tallis' 40-part Spem in Alium for eleven voices.

There are two striking pieces of music theatre in the festival, Burying the Dead by Clare Norburn (former co-artistic director of the festival) which explores Henry Purcell's life and music, and Her Father's Voice which explores the life and music of the 17th century composer and singer Barbara Strozzi. Dance comes in too as Ensemble Hesperi perform Scottish Baroque music with Highland Dancer Kathleen Gilbert [see my interview with the group]

The support of young artists has been a thread which has always run through BREMF. Via its BREMF Live! the festival provides support and mentoring for groups of young artists. There are a trio of events, a masterclass, a showcase and a club night, which give the chance to hear the current emerging ensembles, the Renaissance vocal ensemble Scaramella, the Renaissance/baroque duo Melismata, and the Baroque groups Ensemble Theodora and Apollo's Cabinet. There are two further clubnights, one with a jazz group improvising on Baroque masters, and the other with BREMF Live! artists inviting others to come along and improvise!

Ovid features heavily during the festival, in a variety of guises, and on the final Saturday of the festival BREMF Singers and Players perform Handel's Ovid-based Apollo and Daphne alongside excerpts from Semele. The final event is an evocation of the Medieval Feast of Fools in which the BREMF Community Choir, BREMF Consort of Voices, Street Funk and children from local primary schools create a modern evocation of the much loved Medieval festival (eventually banned by the church) where society was inverted, the young were empowered and a child crowned Bishop and the noble ass revered!

Full details from the BREMF website.

Reformation Remainers: Musicians, zealots and loyalists in Tudor England

St Bartholomew's Church, Brighton

Tavener, Tallis, Byrd; BREMF Consort of Voices, Deborah Roberts; Brighton Early Music Festival at St Bartholomew's Church, Brighton Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 10 November 2018
A hugel ambitious programme full of striking polyphony taking England from pre-Reformation Catholicism and post-Reformation Anglicanism

This year's Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) has Europe as its theme, 700 years of music from 17 European countries. Deborah Roberts and the BREMF Consort of Voices brought out the striking parallels between the English Reformation and BREXIT in their concert Reformation Remainers: Musicians, zealots and loyalists in Tudor England at St Bartholomew's Church, Brighton on Saturday 10 November 2018.

Deborah Roberts' lucid and informative programme note summarized the musical and political events which took Britain from King Henry VIII's Roman Catholic kingdom to Queen Elizabeth I's non-aligned Protestant kingdom, whilst bringing the striking parallels to the present BREXIT process. The programme, started with English church music in pre-Reformation England under King Henry VIII, with Sarum chant, John Tavener's O Wilhelme pastor bone, Leroy Kyrie, the 'Sanctus' from Missa Corona Spinea, and Quemadmodum, and Thomas Tallis' early Salve intemerata virgo. For the second half, we had music after the break with Rome. Musical austerity, but a Catholice writes beautiful music for the new Anglican rite gave us three of Tallis' psalms from Archbishop Parker's Psalter and the anthem Verily I say unto you. Catholic remainers: coded messages in music gave us music written by Britains two major Catholic composers who remained in England and whose music discreetly referenced the sufferings of proscribed Catholics by analogy with the Israelites, with Tallis' The Lamentations of Jeremiah, Parts I & II, and When shall my sorowful sighing slack,  and William Byrd's Vigilate and Ne irascaris Domine. And finally Affirming what is universal: The Trinity with Byrd's Tribue Domine.

The BREMF Consort of Voices is a non-professional group made up of amateurs and students, here fielding 26 singers in a hugely ambitious programme which included two very substantial motets (Tallis' Salve intemerata virgo lasts around 15 minutes and Byrd's Tribue Domine is not that far behind), not to mention Tavener's challenging polyphony. And the end result was a huge achievement, not withstanding the fact that the programme felt slightly too long. What came over was a real sense of achievement, when the singers relaxed into the music and gave us some superbly crafted polyphony. This did not have the polished perfection of a group like the Tallis Scholars, perhaps it was more fallible but it was more personal and wonderfully characterful, and by using a larger group of non-professional voices Deborah Roberts drew some very different sound qualities into the music. Though there were the inevitable wobbles, the overall sound was quite soft grained with, at its best, an admirable flexibility.

BREMF 2018 - Europe: 700 years of music from 17 European countries

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.

Bach's Christmas Oratorio concludes BREMF 2017

Bach Christmas Oratorio; Hannah Ely, Rebecca Leggett, Hugo Hymas, Simon Wallfisch, BREMF Singers & Players, John Hancorn; Brighton Early Music Festival
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Nov 12 2017 Star rating: 3.5
An excellent team of young soloists illuminates an otherwise somewhat fuzzy performance

The 2017 Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) finished with a performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio on Sunday 12 November 2017 in St Martin's Church, Lewes Road, Brighton. John Hancorn conducted the BREMF Singers and the BREMF Players (leader Alison Bury) with an excellent team of young soloists Hannah Ely, Rebecca Leggett, Hugo Hymas and Simon Wallfisch. The audience was provided with the music for five of the chorales and invited to join in the singing of them.

The performers gave us a generous five of the six parts of the oratorio, missing out Part 4. Unfortunately, the exigencies of travelling home to London afterwards meant that we had to miss the second half, and heard only the first three parts.

St Martin's Church is a large, elaborately decorated building with plenty of space for the performers (32 in the choir, 16 in the orchestra) and a generous acoustic to match. The opening chorus, 'Jauchzet, frohlocket' gave a good indication of the strengths and weaknesses of the performance. There was good crisp orchestral playing, but a little dominated by the (excellent) trumpets, a gentle chorus sound with a nice bounce, but ensemble took a little time to settle and throughout the performance, the larger scale numbers seemed to have uneven moments of ensemble, perhaps because of the unfamiliar acoustic. The result was a performance that had its share of fuzzy moments. Balance rather favoured the choir in the bigger numbers, and we could have done with a larger body of strings to support them and a bigger organ. The smaller, more intimate moments worked best, notably the more gentle chorales and the arias, as it the young soloists who really drew the attention.

Illuminating the text: predominantly youthful cast in BREMF's staging of Monteverdi's first opera

Monteverdi: L'Orfeo - Brighton Early Music Festival (Photo Robert Piwko)

Monteverdi L'Orfeo; Rory Carver, Helen Charlston, Jenni Harper, Richard Moore, Andrew Robinson, dir: Thomas Guthrie, musical dir: Deborah Roberts, Oliver Webber; Brighton Early Music Festival at The Old Market
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Npv 11 2017 Star rating: 4.5
An outstanding performance in the title role illuminates this intimate production of Monteverdi's masterpiece

Rory Carver - BREMF (Photo Robert Piwko)

Having staged one of opera's important pre-cursors, the 1589 Florentine Intermedi, a few years ago Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) has turned its attention to the first great opera, Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, as part of the 2017 festival's exploration of classical music's root.

Thomas Guthrie staged the work at Hove's The Old Market (we caught the second of three performances on Saturday 11 November 2017) with Deborah Roberts and Oliver Webber as joint musical directors. Rory Carver was Orfeo with an ensemble of eight singers sharing the other roles, Jenni Harper, Helen Charlston, Benedict Hymas, Dominic Bevan, Richard Moore, Andrew Robinson, Victoria Adams and Emily Burn. Instrumental support was provided by the Monteverdi String Band (leader Oliver Webber), the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, Aileen Henry (harp), James Bramley (chitarrone) and Claire Williams (harpsichord, organ, regal).

This was a relatively small scale production, a welcome opportunity to experience the work on the sort of intimate scale that reflected the work's origins as a courtly entertainment. But Thomas Guthrie's setting was anything but courtly, as he took his inspiration from 1960s Mods and the film Quadrophenia. The anonymous designer had done a good job creating some very strong period looks for cast and chorus, Rory Carver's suit was particularly sharp, and both Jenni Harper and Helen Charlston had strikingly differentiated costumes for their various characters.

Bar a few suspended trees, there was no set but some very effective lighting. For much of the time Guthrie used his chorus as backstop, the noise of movement in the Act One party scene was however somewhat distracting, whilst in the Hades acts I worried about the lack of synchronicity between the choristers ceremoniously carrying candles. Having the cast twist/jive to the dances was a mistake, it looked embarrassing and elicited titters from the audience.

Helen Charlston, Dominic Bevan, Rory Carver
BREMF (Photo Robert Piwko)

The effect of the staging was to place a strong focus on the singers, the majority of whom were young (Rory Carver is still studying at the Royal College of Music). All concerned were impressive in their ability to convince us that they knew what they were singing about (the opera was performed in Italian). A truism perhaps, but it is important given the predominance of recitative in Monteverdi's operas. For all the singers, the text was clearly important both clarity of diction and using it to colour the music.

Rory Carver was Orfeo, and his account of 'Possente Spirto' made my spine tingle in a way which has not happened for a long time. Technically adept, his way with the ornamentation was nicely naturalistic, but it was the way he created a strong sense of Orfeo's presence and the young man's intense journey. Orfeo is a huge role, and that Carver sang it so well and held us so spellbound is a great credit and I look forward to seeing far more of him.

Both Jenni Harper and Helen Charlston created a series of nicely differentiated characters. Harper was an unusual La Musica, poised contained and deliberately rather sexy,, whilst her La Speranza was intense and a little desperate, keen to leave the gates of Hades. Euridice is trickier and frankly Monteverdi and his librettist Striggio seem less interested in her (I rather miss the final intense dialogue between Orpheus and Euridice in Gluck's version), but Harper was poised and elegant. Helen Charleston's La Messagera was searing, this is a gift of a role and Charlston did not disappoint. In complete contrast her Proserpina was poised and sexy.

Benedict Hymas impressed greatly singing Pastore ! and one of spirits in Hades, personable and stylish, he then dazzled us with his account of Apollo's final aria and duet with Orfeo. Dominic Bevan provided strong support as Pastore 2, a spirit in Hades and Eco whilst Victoria Adams brought great strength of personality to Pastore 3. It is perhaps tricky casting a young singer as Caronte, bass voices can be notoriously slow to develop. Richard Moore had all the notes, but as yet not quite the resonance, instead he gave us great commitment and admirable firmness of purpose. (His outfit, leather jacket jeans, red-handkerchief in rear right-hand pocket, seemed to reference gay stereotypes which were not developed).

Andrew Robinson, sporting a dashing pork-pie hat (a la Madness) was perhaps less fierce than usual as Plutone, but impressive nonetheless and contributed firm support as Pastore 4 and a spirit in Hades. Emily Burn made a demure Ninfa.

Monteverdi: L'Orfeo - Benedict Hymas, Rory Carver - Brighton Early Music Festival (Photo Robert Piwko)

These soloists were supplemented with a nine-person non-professional chorus, who rose admirably to the demands the staging made of them. The instrumental playing also reflected the intimacy of the performance, there were few moments as grand as the opening toccata, played on-stage by members of the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, but the opera was full of discreet virtuosity and some lovely instrumental timbres.

Occasional corners of the staging revealed, perhaps, the time limits of rehearsals but overall this was a fine ensemble account of this great opera. The whole cast illuminated Striggio's text and Monteverdi's music but it was Rory Carver's performance that really stays in the memory.

Elsewhere on this blog:

• The quintessence of German Romanticism: Schumann's Liederkreis from Ailish Tynan and James Newby - Concert review
• So what exactly is an haut-contre? - feature article
• An appealing surface with friction underneath: Composer Marcus Paus introduces his new disc - interview
• Exotic journey: Voyages, Mary Bevan and Joseph Middleton - CD review
• Russian revolutionaries: The Prince Regent's Band in Russian chamber music for brass ensemble - CD review
• Significant achievement: Tosca at Icelandic Opera with Claire Rutter in the title role - Opera review
• A window on Polish 17th century: Eamonn Dougan and the Sixteen's latest instalment from the archives - CD review
• 30 year journey: Paul Berkowitz's completion of his Schubert sonata cycle - interview
• Sheer beauty: Rachmaninov's Vespers - CD review
• Opera at the V&A: Opera: Passion, Power and Politics - exhibition review
• Home

Picture perfect: Rameau's Pygmalion at BREMF 2017

Rameau: Pygmalion - Angela Hicks, Josh Cooter, Ensemble Pygmalion - BREMF 2017

Rameau Pygmalion; Josh Cooter, Angela Hicks, Rosalie Wahlfird, Roberta Diamond, Ensemble Moliere, dir: Karolina Sofulak, cond; Satoko Doi-Luck; Brighton Early Music Festival at the Sallis Benney Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Oct 29 2017 Star rating: 4.0
Rameau's one-act opera charmingly re-invented as a picture-book story

Rameau's 1748 opera Pygmalion is quite a slight work, the slim operatic plot providing the excuse for a significant amount of dancing. Without the resources of the Académie Royale de Musique, Ensemble Moliere came up with an imaginative solution for a chamber version which used Kate Anderson's animations to charming effect. We caught the second (of three) performances of the production at the University of Brighton's Sallis Benney Theatre on Sunday 29 October 2017, as part of the Brighton Early Music Festival. Satoko Doi-Luck directed Ensemble Moliere from the harpsichord, with Josh Cooter as Pygmalion, Roberta Diamond as Cephise, Angela Hicks as La Statue and Rosalie Wahlfrid as L'Amour. Karolina Sofulak directed, with lighting by Natalie Rowland.

Kate Anderson's animated designs, projected onto the backdrop, placed the opera in a picture-book contemporary Paris with Josh Cooter's Pygmalion as a contemporary artist working on his PC and the statue (Angela Hicks) as an electronic construct. Rosalie Wahlfrid's L'Amour was ubiquitous, controlling the action throughout. The dance sequences were used for a whistle-stop world tour for L'Amour and the statue, and for Pygmalion and the statue's nuptials. The results made best use of resources (with Wahlfrid as the performance's only dancer), and the naive charm of the performance really engaged, disguising the slightness of the plot.

BREMF 2017: Plainsong to Polyphony

Leonin, Perotin, Machaut, Dunstable, Dufay, Obrecht, Isaac, Gombert, Ockeghem, Josquin, Richafort, Vaet, Fayrax, Tallis; The BREMF Consort of Voices, Lacock Scholars, Deborah Roberts, Greg Skidmore; Brighton Early Music Festival at St Bartholomew's Church
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Oct 28 2017 Star rating: 4.5
A hugely ambitious evening, full of good things, taking us from the earliest chant harmonisation to Tallis' glorious 40-art motet

This year's Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) is investigating the roots of classical music, and the concert Plainsong to Polyphony at St. Bartholomew's Church, Ann Street, Brighton on Saturday 28 October 2017, took us on a hugely ambitious journey from the earliest harmonisations of chant, through the astonishing Parisian school of Leonin and Perotin, the sophisticated music by Machaut, Dufay and Dunstable, and large scale pieces by Obrecht, Isaac and Gombert. We heard a group of works inspired by the chant of the Mass for the Dead, by Ockeghem, Josquin, Jean Richafort and Vaet, and finally explored English Sarum chant with music by Robert Fayrfax, and Thomas Tallis. The culmination was the first work in the programme not based on chant, Thomas Tallis' 40-part motet, Spem in Alium.

The performers were the BREMF Consort of Voices, director Deborah Roberts, and the Lacock Scholars, director Greg Skidmore, with the performers using some complex choreography to all the programme to flow seamlessly despite each piece seemingly having a different line-up of performers. Deborah Roberts and Greg Skidmore shared the conducting honours, both groups performed on their own as well as coming together for the large scale pieces such as Nicolas Gombert's Regina caeli a 12. We started with processional plainchant followed by the earliest surviving harmonisation of plainchant from around 900, a gentle yet striking two part-piece. Two works from the Parisian school followed, the women from the BREMF Consort sang Leonin's Haec dies and men from the Lacock Scholars sang Perotin's amazing Viderunt omnes. This is taxing and ambitious music for non-professionals, and both groups started nervously before relaxing into the music. The men grew in confidence and bravura, creating some really exciting moments in the Perotin.

Biggest ever BREMF

Rory Carver, who sings the title role
in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo at BREMF 2017

This year's Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) will be the biggest ever with over 30 events across Brighton and Hove from 27 October to 12 November 2017. The over-arching theme of the festival being Roots, looking at the tangled origins of classical music from the roots of polyphony in Plainchant, the development of opera, to the genesis of oratorio.

Flagship events include two opera productions, Monteverdi's L'Orfeo and Rameau's Pygmalion charting the development of opera from its roots to the 18th century. And the development of oratorio is represented by performances of Carissimi's Jephte and Bach's Christmas Oratorio. 

The festival is known for its championing of young performers, especially its Early Music Live! scheme for emerging ensembles, and many of the groups performing this year have previously taken part in Early Music Live! including the Consone String Quartet, Ensemble Molière, The Askew Sisters, Ensemble Hesperi, Musica Poetica, Ensemble Tempus Fugit, Chelys Consort of Viols and the Little Baroque Company. This year's Early Music Live! participants will be presenting their work at a special showcase at the festival on 4 November 2017. Two concerts from the festival will be recorded by BBC Radio 3 for broadcast on the Early Music Show.

Monteverdi's L'Orfeo will be staged at The Old Market in Hove, in a new production by Thomas Guthrie featuring a cast of specially auditioned young singers headed by tenor Rory Carver as Orfeo. Rameau's Pygmalion receives a new staging by Karolina Sofulak in collaboration with baroque group Ensemble Molière.

Another feature of the festival is its own ensembles, ranging from the BREMF Consort to the BREMF Community Choir. Events include the BREMF Consort and Lacock Scholars, directed by Deborah Roberts and Greg Skidmore, in a programme tracing the roots of polyphony in early plainchant culminating in a performance of Tallis's Spem in alium, and the BREMF Singers and BREMF Players in Bach's Christmas Oratorio directed by Alison Bury and John Hancorn with soloists Hannah Ely, Rebecca Leggett, Hugo Hymas and Simon Wallfisch.  The festival opens with Orpheus Caledonius an exploration of the traditional music of 18th century Scotland where L'Avventura London, the Old Blind Dogs and Siobhan Miller are joined by the BREMF Community Choir.

Full details from the BREMF website.

Springtime for the pian' e forte

Trio Goya (Kati Debretzeni, Maggie Cole, Sebastian Comberti)

Beethoven, Haydn, Diabelli; Trio Goya; Brighton Early Music Festival at Ralli Hall
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Nov 13 2016
Star rating: 4.5
Two contrasting piano trios dating from 1793, in engaging period performances

Our final visit to the 2016 Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) on Sunday 13 November 2016, was Springtime for the pian' e forte from Trio Goya, Maggie Cole (fortepiano), Kati Debretzeni (violin), Sebastian Comberti (cello) at Ralli Hall, Hove. The trio performed Haydn's Piano trio in G minor, Hob XV:19 and Beethoven's Piano Trio in E flat Op.1, No.1 (both written in 1793), Beethoven's Violin sonata in F major, OP.24 (Spring) and Anton Diabelli's Gran Sonata in D major, Op.92 for cello and piano.

Haydn's trio was his 33rd in the genre, the work still has its origins recognisably in the accompanied sonata, and though Haydn gives the violin melodic moments independent of the piano, he rarely lets the cello off the leash. Maggie Cole was playing a modern copy of a 1795 Viennese fortepiano by Anton Walter, and I had forgotten quite how light the tone of such instruments could be, so that both Haydn and Beethoven need to clear the strings out of the way to make room for the fortepiano, giving a sense of dialogue to both trios. Though Beethoven was only 23 when his trio was published, he was already pushing the envelope and his cello part is far more liberated than Haydn's and we are already well on the way to three full independent parts.

So Haydn's Andante first movement opened with almost a fortepiano sonata, the material then repeated with strings. There were a couple of occasions when I wondered if the violin and cello were a bit too present in the balance. But this was lovely characterful playing from all three, with a superb sense of ensemble. The Adagio had a nice sense of singing line from both the fortepiano and the strings, with some lovely little corners. The final movement, Presto was a perky delight taken at quite a fast tempo, something facilitated by the quick die away on the fortepiano.

Gaia: Three intermedi for a living planet at BREMF

Gaia: Three intermedi for a living planet 
Josquin des Pres, Antoine Brumel, Claudio Monteverdi, Orlando di Lasso, Giaches de Wert, Giammateo Asia, Marco di Gagliano, Maurizio Cazzati, Lodovico Agostini, Heinrich Isaac, and Giovanni Gabrieli; 
BREMF Consort of Voices, Christina Thaler, Natasha Stone, Matthew Pochin, Dominic Bevan, Andrew Robinson, the Lacock Scholars, Greg Skidmore, BREMF Community Choir, English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, Claire Williams, Aileen Henry, Toby Carr, Alison Kinder, Zen Grisdale, Deborah Roberts; 
Brighton Early Music Festival at St Bartholomew's Church
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Nov 12 2016
Star rating: 4.5
Audio visual spectacular, combining renaissance music with film of the natural world

BREMF - Gaia: Three intermedi for a living planet
St Bartholomew's Church, Brighton

Brighton Early Music Festival's (BREMF) Gaia: Three intermedi for a living planet, was presented at St Bartholomew's Church, Brighton on Saturday 12 November 2016. Inspired by the festival's 2014 production of the Florentine Intermedi of 1589, it was a theatrical event devised and directed by Deborah Roberts, Gaia which featured music by Josquin des Pres, Antoine Brumel, Claudio Monteverdi, Orlando di Lasso, Giaches de Wert, Giammateo Asia, Marco di Gagliano, Maurizio Cazzati, Lodovico Agostini, Heinrich Isaac, and Giovanni Gabrieli, performed by the BREMF Consort of Voices (director Deborah Roberts), Onde Sonore (Deborah Roberts, Christina Thaler, Natasha Stone, Matthew Pochin, Dominic Bevan, Andrew Robinson), the Lacock Scholars (director Greg Skidmore), the BREMF Community Choir (director Andrew Robinson), the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, Claire Williams (harpsichord, organ), Aileen Henry (harp), Toby Carr (chitarrone), and Alison Kinder (bass viol).

Just as the festival's production of the Florentine Intermedi had been interpreted via modern visuals, so Gaia featured featured performances from Anonymous 2 Dance (Sebastian Blue Pin, Tom Shale Coates), and Laura Shipsey (yoga), film by Zen Grisdale (with extra footage from Sid Dult and Oliver Martin), lighting and projection by Pitch Black, costumes by Gladrags Community Costumes Trust.

Each intermedio took a particular theme, The Earth's Core, The Earth's Surface and The Skies and the Heavens, and within this each had two parts, the first purely descriptive, the second mythical and allegorical. Whilst elements were staged (the extracts from Monteverdi's L'Orfeo and Marco di Gagliano's La Flora), much of the presentation combined imaginative lighting with Zen Grisdale's spectacular film of the earth's natural features, the film being projected onto a huge screen erected at the East end of the church.

The intertwining of music and science: Galileo at the Brighton Early Music Festival

Roger Watkins, the Marian Consort - Galileo - BREMF - photo Robert Piwko

Galileo; The Monteverdi String Band, The Marian Consort; Brighton Early Music Festival at St Paul's Church, Brighton
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Oct 29 2016
Star rating: 4.0
Dramatic performance linking Galileo's life with the remarkable music which surrounded him

Roger Watkins, members of Monteverdi String Band - Galileo - BREMF
photo Robert Piwko

Having previously explored the life and music of Gesualdo and of Hildegard of Bingen, Clare Norburn and Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) turned their attention to Galileo for this year's festival. Whilst the Renaissance scientist might seem an unlikely figure to be the subject of one of Norburn's plays with music, in fact there are a number of intersections. 

They presented Galileo - A music drama on the life and discoveries of Galileo Galilei at St Paul's Church, Brighton on 29 October 2016. Roger Watkins performed Norburn's text, whilst the Marian Consort (Katie Trethewey and Miriam Allan sopranos, Rory McCleery countertenor & director, Guy Cutting and Simon Wall tenors, Edward Grint bass), and the Monteverdi String Band (Oliver Webber violin/leader, Theresa Caudle violin, Wendi Kelly and David Brooker viola, Christopher Suckling bass violin, Peter McCarthy violone, David Miller lute, Alex McCartney lute, Steven Devine organ/harpsichord) performed music by Monteverdi, Vincenzo Galilei, Francesca Caccini, Francesco Canova da Milano, Joan Ambrosio Dalza, Cristofano Malvezzi, Giovanni Bardi, Giovanni Gabrieli, Cipriano de Rore, Emilio de'Cavalieri, Giovanni Antonio Terzi, Orlando di Lasso, Giuseppe Scarani, Michelangelo Galilei, Domenico Mazocchi, Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger, and Alessandro Piccinini. The performance was directed by Stephen Tiller.

Galileo Galilei was born into a family of musicians, his father was a lutenist and Galileo would play lute duets with his father. Throughout his Galileo's life, music intersects his activities. As a young man he assisted his father's experiments to prove that equal temperament was better than mean-tone tuning, and as his father was a member of the Florentine Camerata, whose experiments led to the development of monody and to opera, the music in Galileo's life was cutting edge. Galileo was present at, and almost certainly involved in, the creation of the Florentine Intermedi of 1589, a musico-dramatic presentation which was an important pre-cursor of opera.

The play presented Galileo on the last day of his life, before his execution, reminiscing and remembering with music forming the backdrop to memory.

Help BREMF crowd-fund 'Gaia - three intermedi for a living planet'

Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) has an exciting programme planned for this Autumn (see my preview). One of the highlights promises to be Gaia - three intermedi for a living planet, inspired by the festival's staging of the Florentine Intermedi of 1589 a few years ago, Gaia (devised and directed by Deborah Roberts) is very much a modern take on the 16th century intermedi and will be combining professional performers such as the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, Onde Sonore, and the Lacock Scholars with involves local singers from the BREMF Consort of Voices and the BREMF Community Choir. The Community Choir is a vibrant, non-auditioned choir in the best traditional of community music-making. 

To help fund this ambitious production, which uses film, projections, lighting effects, mime, yoga and dance to tell the story of our Earth and how humans have perceived it through the ages, the festival has launched a Crowd-funding page. Pledges range from £10 to £500 with all sorts of tempting rewards so there is plenty of scope to help.