Beverley Early Music Festival 2017 Brochure

& East Riding Early Music Festival

Friday 26 – Monday 29 May

2017 anuscr ipts

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Box Office 01904 658338

www.ncem.co.uk/bemf

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anniversary year

Welcome to our 30th Anniversary Celebrations. This is an extraordinary year for culture in the region, with the Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival celebrating 30 years of music-making alongside the year-round programme of activities designed to celebrate Hull as the 2017 City of Culture.

Initiated in 1988 by the local authority, the Festival was designed to bring together the history, ecclesiastical architecture and music of the past for the people of today, and to encourage visitors into the area. Over the years, the Festival has grown to be acknowledged as a ‘jewel in the cultural crown’, and this year we are delighted to welcome internationally acclaimed artists including The Tallis Scholars, the orchestra La Serenissima and the ever-entertaining Carnival Band alongside our very own ‘home-grown’ stars of the future studying at our local schools and universities.

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The Festival is organised by the National Centre for Early Music, York and works in partnership with the East Riding of Yorkshire Council. This year we are particularly pleased to host a major new exhibition celebrating one of the most extraordinary pan-European music collections in history. ‘Through the Looking Glass’ is presented by the Alamire Foundation in Beverley Minster. This gives us an opportunity to draw out the historic links between Beverley and the area now known as Belgium and sets the theme for much of the festival programme.

30 years on there are many people to acknowledge and thank – not least the festival team, stewards and custodians of the churches of Beverley.

I should also thank the Trustees of the NCEM, the Arts Council, East Riding of Yorkshire Council, trust funds and individuals who support us year on year. We couldn’t survive without you!

We look forward to celebrating with you all in 2017.

Delma Tomlin MBE, Director

F R I D A Y 2 6 M A Y – S U N D A Y 16 J U LY Beverley Minster Admission free. Open 9.00am – 5.00pm and 12 noon – 5.00pm

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

An Exhibition of Illustrated Music Manuscripts from the Workshop of Petrus Alamire Join us and enter the opulent world of the 16th century through the eyes of Petrus Alamire – musical scribe, composer, singer and producer of some of the most decorated illustrated choirbooks in history.

Collected together by the Alamire Foundation, the music manuscripts are represented in high quality, scaled images.

Meet rulers, composers and musicians, and experience the arts and the worldview of the

time brought to life through these extraordinary beautiful images.

Visitors are also invited into the media-installation 'Speculum Musurgica' by the Belgian contemporary artist Rudi Knoops to hear the music so artfully illustrated. Roll back 500 years and enter the sound world of Alamire as you get "up-close and personal" with the musicians at work.

This exhibition was first mounted in Antwerp Cathedral by the Alamire Foundation, International Centre for the Study of Music in the Low Countries and AMUZ, Flanders Festival-Antwerp (Belgium), and will travel internationally starting in 2017 at Beverley Minster.

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F R I DAY 2 6 M AY Event 1 Venue Tickets

2.00pm – c.3.00pm Beverley Minster £3.00

Cathryn Dew artistic director Merit Ariane Stephanos composer Jennifer Cohen flute with the University of Hull Chapel Choir directed by Simon Desbruslais & Music Students from the University of York with Beverley Grammar School students directed by Zoe Hughes and Pupils from Beverley Primary Schools

Of Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

Based on the Festival’s exhibition of illuminated manuscripts from the workshop of renaissance polymath (and royal spy) Petrus Alamire, Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax introduces primary and secondary students to the

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music of the past, and helps them to make sense of it in a modern world.

Throughout the month leading into the Festival, student mentors from Beverley Grammar School and pupils from local primaries will work

alongside professional performers and advanced music students. Together they will explore intriguing 15th and 16th century repertoire and blend it with their own creative responses to tell incredible tales from Alamire’s unusual life!

F R I DAY 2 6 M AY Event 2 Venue Tickets

7.30pm – c.9.30pm St Mary’s Church, North Bar Within £26.00 (concessions £22.00 students £5.00)

La Serenissima

directed from the violin by Adrian Chandler with Vladimir Waltham cello Leo Duarte, Rachel Chaplin oboes Anneke Scott, Jocelyn Lightfoot horns

Vivaldi Double Concertos Vivaldi – the great Italian composer known worldwide for The Four Seasons – left an extraordinary legacy of work, composing around 500 concertos. This programme illuminates the genius of his writing for double concertos – two instruments of the same kind.

Whatever the combination, and whatever challenges are set for the soloists involved, this award-winning orchestral group continues to bring new audiences to this glorious music through their vivacity and musical brilliance.

‘La Serenissima rejoice in its dazzling inventiveness with a heartfelt eloquence and dynamism that captures fully the music’s wide-ranging emotional narrative.’ The Strad www.laserenissima.co.uk

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S AT U R DAY 27 M AY Event 3 Venue: Tickets

10.00am registration – 4.30pm informal performance Beverley Minster Parish Hall, Highgate £18.00 (student/observers £6.00)

A Choral Workshop led by Patrick Craig

As a prelude to the evening’s concert and to complement the exhibition in the Minster, singers are invited to join Patrick Craig as he returns to Beverley for an exploration of some of the repertoire featured in the

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Alamire collection, including works by Pierre de la Rue and Josquin des Prez.

This practical session is open to all voices (SATB) with reasonable sight-reading skills.

The day will conclude with an informal performance to which all are invited, free-of-charge.

Application form and music downloads: www.ncem.co.uk/ BEMF17workshop

Festival Exhibition: Discovery Pack for Youngsters From 26 May – 16 July, we are inviting younger visitors (aged 5 – 11) to join us in Beverley Minster and to pick up a discovery pack entitled ‘Curiouser and Curiouser’ to learn about Petrus Alamire’s double life as a spy for Henry VIII. Activities will include questions about cracking secret codes, creating bespoke illuminated letters and finding out more about the music preserved within the pages of Alamire’s amazing manuscripts.

The pack has been created by the National Centre for Early Music with funding from the East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

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S AT U R DAY 27 M AY Event 4 Venue Tickets

1.00pm – 2.00pm Toll Gavel United Church £12.00 (concessions £10.00, students £5.00)

Castello Consort

Matthijs van der Moolen sackbut Elise van der Wel violin Anne-Linde Visser cello Miguel Espinoza harpsichord, organ

Laudate The Castello Consort is the second Emerging Ensemble to be presented at the Festival following in the footsteps of the Consone String Quartet. Members of the group met whilst studying at The Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and are in Beverley following

FESTIVAL SAVER TICKET

a busy programme of concerts in Utrecht, Norway and Finland. The concert, which marks their UK debut, takes its inspiration from the religious ceremonies of the 17th century with music by Monteverdi, Marini, Frescobaldi and Castello. www.castelloconsort.com

£100.00 (concessions £90.00) Buy tickets for events 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 11 and save over 15% Please note that all concerts must be booked at the same time and the offer is subject to availability.

The NCEM is one of eight major partner organisations from across the European Union involved in the eeemerging project that aims to promote new talent in young professional early music ensembles.

This dynamic programme is led by the Centre culturel de rencontre d’Ambronay, France and brings together Ars Ramovš, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Centre de musique ancienne de l’Université de musique de Bucarest, Romania; Centre de musique ancienne de Riga, Latvia; Ghislieri Musica, Pavia, Italy; Internationale Händel-Festspiele Göttingen, Germany; Ozango Productions, Strasbourg, France and the National Centre for Early Music York.

www.eeemerging.eu

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S AT U R DAY 27 M AY Event 5 Venue Tickets

3.30pm – c.4.30pm St John of Beverley RC Church, 5 North Bar Without £10.00

Lost Houses of East Yorkshire An illustrated talk by Edward Waterson

Dates for your diary

It is estimated that nearly two thousand English country houses have disappeared since the 1850s. In East Yorkshire around a hundred houses were demolished, among them Newington Hall, the Greek revival mansion that was home

to Edward’s family in the nineteenth century. He will be exploring the reasons for the destruction of so many architectural masterpieces and taking us on a pictorial tour of this extraordinary aspect of the county’s heritage.

Tuesday 21 March Tickets: £25.00 (concessions £23.00, students £5.00)

European Day of Early Music Celebrations

European Union Baroque Orchestra Lars Ulrik Mortensen director & harpsichord Maria Keohane soprano Bojan Čičić concertmaster Neven Lesage oboe

Betrayal & Betrothal: Music by Handel and Bach

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Edward has spent most of his working life as a Chartered Surveyor in York, specialising in historic buildings. His five books on Lost Houses have become standard works on the subject.

Saturday 6 May 12.30pm, 3.30pm and 7.00pm National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate,York YO1 9TL Day tickets: £37.00 (concessions £32.00, students £7.00).

Individual tickets also available.

University of York Baroque Day

Compagnia d’Istrumenti University Baroque Ensemble Niels Tilma trumpet Bethany Seymour soprano

Music Without Words:

By Telemann, Biber and Strozzi

CONCERT BY C ANDLELIGHT

S AT U R DAY 27 M AY Event 6 Venue Tickets

7.30pm – c.9.30pm Beverley Minster, £30.00 reserved seating, front central nave £25.00 unreserved seating, front side aisles £20.00 (concessions £15.00, students £5.00) unreserved seating rear nave

The Tallis Scholars directed by Peter Phillips

Masterpieces of the 16th Century This programme, presented by festival favourites, The Tallis Scholars, is inspired by the music represented within the Festival Exhibition. Alamire published many of Josquin’s masses - the Missa Malheur me bat being one of the most famous. Based on a chanson, possibly by Ockeghem, it is for four voices until the final movement, when it blossoms into six. Its complex canons

continued to be talked about by theorists for over a hundred years, and are models of the art. The remaining pieces are mostly for five voices, sandwiched between masterpieces by Byrd. Browne’s O regina mundi clara, from the Eton Choirbook, is exceptional in having ten separate voiceparts, including four tenors, all of them with dramatically high tessituras. The concert will

highlight the architectural majesty of the Minster through the exquisite beauty of singers who are renowned world-wide for their perfect understanding of these 16th century masterpieces ‘One of the UK’s greatest cultural exports’ BBC Radio 3 www.thetallisscholars.co.uk

Audience members are invited to join us for a free pre-concert talk from 6.45pm - 7.00pm when Thomas Schmidt will briefly introduce the Festival Exhibition ‘Through the Looking Glass’ and the connection with the music featured in this concert.

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S U N DAY 2 8 M AY Event 7 Venue Tickets

2.00pm – 3.00pm The Choir, Beverley Minster Admission is free of charge but tickets are necessarily limited so early booking is advised.

BBC Radio 3’s The Early Music Show

Dates for your diary

Join us for a recording of this popular show which will be broadcast on Sunday 4 June. Presented by Lucie Skeaping, guests include Andy Watts and Vivien Ellis from The Carnival Band and the University of York’s MA vocal ensemble Cenere with Brianna Louwen soprano, Rosalind Parker, Helen Hughson mezzo-sopranos, Thomas Brooke tenor and Thomas Lowen bass.

Friday 7 - Saturday 15 July

Changing Times: Changing Places Guest artists include I Fagiolini, B’Rock Orchestra, Mala Punica and Cinquecento. Highlights include a staged presentation of Bach’s St Matthew Passion; the 2017 International Young Artists Competition and Bach’s sonatas for solo violin, gamba and harpsichord as showcased by Kati Debretzeni, Carole Cerasi and Alison McGillivray.

Ticket information: www.ncem.co.uk/yemf

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S U N DAY 2 8 M AY Event 8 Venue Tickets

8.00pm – c.9.45pm St Mary’s Church, North Bar Within £20.00 (concessions £18.00, students £5.00)

The Carnival Band with Vivien Ellis Steve Banks tabor, percussion, violin, vocals Jub Davis double bass, vocals Giles Lewin violin, recorder, vocals Steno Vitale cittern, vocals Andy Watts curtal, recorder, bagpipes, vocals

Heroines and Tricksters – Women in Balladry The ever-entertaining Carnival Band mix dozens of styles of music together with instruments from across the world in a programme inspired by their current quest to rediscover and perform 100 broadside ballads – the pop music of the 17th century. Their subjects were love, politics, battles, crime, folk tales, and sensational accounts of

monsters and disasters. In this concert the women take centre stage – female soldiers, cunning tricksters, noble heroines, and girls who know what they want and how to get it! Vivien Ellis and The Carnival Band bring these characters

vividly to life with an array of instruments, full vocal harmony and an infectious sense of fun.

‘The purists must have been squirming. The rest of us were having too much fun to care.’

York Press www.carnivalband.com

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M O N DAY 2 9 M AY Event 9 Venue Tickets

10.30am – c.11.30am The Choir, Beverley Minster £5.00

M O N DAY 2 9 M AY

Family

Event 10 2.00pm – c.3.00pm Venue Toll Gavel United Church Tickets £8.00 (children aged 7 – 12 £5.00) Family ticket (2 adults, 2 children £20.00)

Friendly

Made to Impress Palisander with or to Sing From?

Rust and Stardust Petrus Alamire’s Polyphonic Choirbooks Dr Dee’s Daughter and the Philosopher’s Stone An illustrated lecture Award-winning recorder quartet Palisander joins

by Thomas Schmidt theatre company Rust and Stardust, in an exciting The so-called ‘Alamire’ manuscripts are amongst the biggest and most beautiful manuscripts ever made in the Renaissance period. Their size and lavish decoration corresponds to their function as gifts by the Habsburg regent Margaret of Austria to rulers all across Europe. But their content was also meant to impress: they contain the repertoire of Margaret’s court chapel which was likewise one of the premier musical institutions in Europe at the time. The talk explores how these fantastic objects could be many things to many people - to be sung from, the pictures to be looked at and interpreted together with the music, or perhaps just to be admired from a distance, with a sense of the glory of God and the power of the ruler in whose possession they were.

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new family show of magic, history and science.

The tale is told through beautiful puppetry and music, performed on recorders up to 6ft tall.

Set in 1595, Dr Dee’s Daughter and the Philosopher’s Stone follows young Katherine Dee as she starts her search for the Philosopher's Stone - the Elixir of Life, a quest her father has abandoned. She experiments, and manages to summon an assistant in the playful spirit, Madimi.

But using Dee's magic crystal has opened a pathway and not all those who use it are as friendly as Madimi...

‘The young audience was enthralled’ thelatest.co.uk www.palisanderrecorders.com

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Event 11 7.30pm – c.9.30pm Venue East Riding Theatre Tickets £18.00 (concessions £15.00)

The Marian Consort

directed by Rory McCleery Katie Trethewey, Gwendolen Martin sopranos Thomas Kelly alto Matthew Howard, Rory McCleery tenors Nicholas Ashby bass with Wezi Elliot lute

by Clare Norburn with Lighting by Pitch Black

Gerald Kyd as Gesualdo

The extraordinary life and music of Carlo Gesualdo, Renaissance prince, gifted composer and notorious murderer. Admired by figures as varied as Igor Stravinsky, Aldous Huxley and Frank Zappa, Gesualdo's strange and fascinating music is brought to life by the sublime voices of The Marian Consort, as Gesualdo spends his final night contemplating his own mortality and the tumultuous events which have led him to this moment.

‘It’s hard not to be drawn in by the intimacy of The Marian Consort’s delivery and the vividness of their storytelling’ Sinfini Music ‘Exquisite...the ensemble sings with eloquence and expressive finesse’ The Sunday Times www.marianconsort.co.uk/ breakingtherules

Photo: Robin Mitchell for the Lammermuir Festival

Breaking the Rules The Imagined Testimony of Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), Composer and Murderer!

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B O O K I N G I N F O R M AT I O N

Box Office 01904 658338 email: boxoffice@ncem.co.uk www.ncem.co.uk/bemf The Festival is administered by the National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York YO1 9TL.

How to book Tickets are available to buy online, by telephone, by post or in person and are also available to print at home.

On-line Visit our web site at tickets.ncem.co.uk and use the secure on-line booking service.

By telephone Please contact the box office on 01904 658338.

There is a non-refundable £1.50 administration charge per transaction made on-line or by phone with an optional 50p for second class post.

AS AN NCEM PATRON

AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE

By post Write to the NCEM Box Office, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York YO1 9TL enclosing an SAE. Cheques should be made payable to the National Centre for Early Music. Please use a ‘large’ stamp if ordering 10+ tickets.

In person A limited number of individual tickets are available to personal visitors from the Beverley Tourist Information Centre, 34 Butcher Row, Beverley HU17 0AB. Open weekdays 10.00 - 17.00 and 10.00 16.00 on Saturdays.

Tickets can also be purchased in person from the NCEM Box Office, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, York YO1 9TL open 9.00 – 5.00 Mon-Fri.

Supporting innovation, excellence and creative learning

Meet early music specialists and like-minded individuals through informal receptions, supper parties and concerts and have a unique opportunity to explore some of the hidden corners of Beverley and the East Riding in the company of experts and friends.

If you would like to find out more, please contact Delma Tomlin MBE telephone 01904 632220 | email: support@ncem.co.uk | www.ncem.co.uk/patrons

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Festival Saver Ticket

Venues

Buy a festival saver ticket for events 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 11 and save over 15%. This offer includes front nave seats in Beverley Minster and is necessarily subject to availability.

All venues are within walking distance of central Beverley and all addresses are listed below.

Download the Beverley Town Centre Map for Car Parking information via: www.visithullandeastyorkshire.com/beverley

On the day of the concert Tickets will be available on-line as Print at Home Tickets up to 2 hours prior to the concert.

Remaining tickets will be available to purchase on the door of the concert 45 minutes prior to the performance, subject of course to availability.

Seating Seats are unreserved except for the front nave of Beverley Minster, the East Riding Theatre and for NCEM Patrons.

Reservations Tickets must be paid for within three working days of reservation and at least 24 hours prior to the performance. Any remaining tickets will be sold at the venue immediately prior to the performance.

Concession prices The price shown in brackets is the concession price for those aged 65 and over, disabled, a companion and the unemployed.

Refunds We regret that refunds can only be given if the concert is sold out and we are able to sell on the ticket. Please note that there will be a 10% administration charge.

General enquiries

Beverley Minster, Highgate, Beverley HU17 ODN Beverley Minster Parish Hall, Highgate East Riding Theatre, 10 Lord Roberts Road, Beverley HU17 9BE Toll Gavel United Church, Toll Gavel, Beverley HU17 9AA St Mary’s Church, North Bar Within, Beverley HU17 8DL St John of Beverley RC Church, 5 North Bar Without, Beverley HU17 7AG

Group bookings Buy nine tickets for any one concert and receive one further ticket free! All tickets must be booked in advance at the same time.

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Accessible facilities

The Festival offers a warm welcome to everyone and all venues are accessible to those using wheelchairs but please do let us know when booking so that we can assist you on arrival. The NCEM website www.ncem.co.uk is accessible to the partially sighted and assistance dogs are welcome at concerts. For detailed information, please ring 01904 632220. The NCEM is a Typetalk Approved business.

Please ring 01904 632220 for general information.

Visitor Information

Stay In Touch

To book accommodation please ring Tourist Information on 01482 391672 email Beverley.tic@eastriding.gov.uk

email us at boxoffice@ncem.co.uk or sign up at www.ncem.co.uk

visit www.visithullandeastyorkshire.com/ places-to-stay

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Early Music Festival

F r i d ay 2 6 – M o n d ay 2 9 M ay 2 017

Artists include

The Tallis Scholars, Palisander, The Carnival Band, The Marian Consort, La Serenissima

yorkearlymusic

The National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate York Y01 9TL

The Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival is directed by Delma Tomlin MBE and administered by the National Centre for Early Music through the York Early Music Foundation – registered charity number 1068331. All details are correct at the time of going to press but the Festival reserves the right to make alterations to the published programme – if necessary.

Design | RedBonsai.co.uk 01759319471

Box Office 01904 658338 | www.ncem.co.uk/bemf

Front cover image: From the workshop of Petrus Alamire: c. Alamire Foundation, Leuven.

& East Riding