BEMP's biennial Grand Baroque series was somewhat interrupted due to circumstances we all hope are now well behind us… We return with a flourish in 2022, bringing perhaps the most grand of all baroque works to life in Exeter Cathedral, Mass in B minor by JS Bach. Bach was feeling his years when he completed… Read More »Blackdowns Early Music Projects – J S Bach Mass in B minor
Post-Restoration music with a twist! From recorders and viols to shawms and bagpipes, three multi-instrumentalists turn the spotlight onto music from Purcell's time, encompassing sonatas and country dances. Jude Rees, David Jarratt-Knock and Mary Mohan are multi-instrumentalists with wide experience in a variety of genres including early music from medieval to baroque, folk, and classical.… Read More »Blackdowns Early Music Projects – Enlightenment & Entertainment – CANCELLED WITH APOLOGIES DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES
John Kenny returns to Culmstock this year with his one man show, called The Mouthpiece of the Gods, a highly dramatic story in which he explores the long history of lip reed instruments: shells, animal horns, bronze horns, straying into the realms of zoomorphism, cultural diasporas, and eventual reassimilation. This might sound a bit like… Read More »Blackdowns Early Music Projects – The Mouthpiece of the Gods
The first Third Thursday of 2023 starts with a new sort of early music, blues and spirituals dating from around a century ago, sung by Julia Titus with Steve Graham on cornet and Mike Denham on keyboard. Both Steve and Mike are well known on the Jazz circuits in the South West and further afield,… Read More »Blackdowns Early Music Projects – Spirit of the Blues
Courtly and Country Music from Purcell’s England Post-Restoration music with a twist! From recorders and viols to shawms and bagpipes,three multi-instrumentalists turn the spotlight onto music from Purcell’s time,encompassing sonatas and country dances. *********************************** Jude Rees, David Jarratt-Knock and Mary Mohan are multi-instrumentalists with wide experience in a variety of genres including early music from… Read More »Blackdowns Early Music Projects – Enlightenment & Entertainment
Four hundred years after the death of William Byrd, we still delight in singing a huge number of his works. For him music was an entire language, telling of the religious changes through his lifetime as well as describing the lighter side of life. 1623 saw the passing of two other notable composers: Thomas Weelkes,… Read More »Blackdowns Early Music Projects – A Choral Feast from 1623
Double choir Vespers of 1623 by Ignatio Donati with accompanying sackbuts, violins, organ and maybe even a cornetto or two! MD Gawain Glenton, assistant director Emily White, continuo Masumi Yamamoto.
Professional series: We are delighted to welcome the international ensemble Phaedrus, as part of their UK tour following an appearance at the Cambridge Early Music Festival. Emma-Lisa Roux (voice & & lute) with Mara Winter, Charlotte Schneider and Luis Martinez Pueyo (renaissance flute consort) are bringing a programme entitled The King's Flutes, referring to the… Read More »Blackdowns Early Music Projects – The King’s Flutes
Professional series: We are delighted to welcome the international ensemble Phaedrus, as part of their UK tour following an appearance at the Cambridge Early Music Festival. Emma-Lisa Roux (voice & & lute) with Mara Winter, Charlotte Schneider and Luis Martinez Pueyo (renaissance flute consort) are bringing a programme entitled The King's Flutes, referring to the… Read More »Blackdowns Early Music Projects – The King’s Flutes
Gawain Glenton, cornetto and Silas Wollston, organo di legno The appointment of the Flemish composer Adrian Willaert at Venice’s Basilica San Marco in 1527 heralded the emergence of Venice as a cultural super-power. This recital explores the work of original composers who built the ‘myth of Venice' in sound. Reviews of the CD of the… Read More »Blackdowns Early Music Projects – The Myth of Venice – C16 music for Cornetto and Keyboards
