Date: May 19, 2017
Categories: Concerts, Festivals

Friday 19th May, Norwich Playhouse at 7.30pm

Annelien Van Wauwe clarinet
Amatis Piano Trio

Ravel Piano Trio in A minor
Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time

Some of the most beautiful music has been inspired by the most harrowing of circumstances, none more so than Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Composed while Messiaen was interned in a prisoner of war camp in 1940, it received one of the most unique premieres in all music history when it was performed to an audience of fellow prisoners and German guards on a cold January night in a hut at the centre of war-torn Nazi Germany. Decades on, its heartfelt, expressive power is as vivid and as relevant as ever. Celebrated for their fiery and intelligent performances, the Amatis Trio with clarinettist Annelien Van Wauve bring their exceptional musicianship to this compelling apocalyptic musical vision of the future.

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Date: May 26, 2017
Categories: Concerts, Festivals, New Work

Friday 26th May, St Andrew’s Hall at 7.30pm

Britten Sinfonia

Thomas Adès conductor
Mark Stone baritone

Gerald Barry Beethoven
Beethoven Symphony No. 1
Beethoven Symphony No. 2

In this concert, which is centred on the work and influence of Beethoven, we hear his witty first symphony paired with the virtuosic second. These are complemented by Gerald Barry’s powerful setting of Beethoven’s famous love letter to his “immortal beloved”. Hearing how one of the most celebrated composer/conductors working today will interpret and illuminate these iconic works, is sure to be a major event in the classical music calendar.

‘Adès makes you hear things with which you thought you were familiar as if they were completely new’ The Guardian – click here to read the full article

Pre-concert talk 6.30pm Baritone Mark Stone discusses Gerald Barry’s Beethoven.

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Date: July 23, 2017
Categories: Concerts, Festivals, New Work
Tags: bristol ensemble, bristol harbour festival, handel 300th anniversary, water music

Sunday 23rd July, SS Great Britain, Bristol, 5.30pm

Handel’s Water Music 300th Anniversary celebrated at Bristol Harbour Festival

The Bristol Ensemble will take centre stage at this year’s Bristol Harbour Festival which will conclude with a 45-minute performance of Handel’s Water Music in the Floating Harbour at 5.30pm on Sunday 23 July. The Bristol Ensemble will perform on a flotilla of boats, with flares marking the finale beside Brunel’s SS Great Britain.

The dramatic performance will mark the 300th anniversary of the first legendary performance of the famous piece. In July 1717, the premiere was given in front of the King and his court aboard a flotilla of boats on the River Thames, so it is fitting that this recreation will take place on the water beside one of Bristol’s most exciting historic landmarks: Brunel’s SS Great Britain. Brunel was a great fan of Handel’s music, and requested that ‘See the Conqu’ring Hero Comes’ from Judas Maccabaeus was performed at an underwater party held inside his new Thames Tunnel during its construction in the 1820s; Brunel later had the same piece performed at an event marking the completion of the Royal Albert Bridge, Plymouth.

Bristol’s 300th anniversary performance of Handel’s Water Music is possible thanks to public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Earlier on Sunday 23 July, children from local primary schools involved with ‘Preludes’ music project will perform a new composition on the SS Great Britain and BBC Radio Bristol stage in Brunel Square. They will work with ‘Preludes’ teachers and musicians from the Bristol Ensemble, taking inspiration from Handel’s Water Music before premiering their Bristol Harbour Festival performance.

For more information on the performance including details of the flotilla route and timings follow the link

BRISTOL HARBOUR FESTIVAL

Box office is open Monday to Friday from 9.30am until 12.30pm.

Date: July 31, 2017
Categories: Concerts, Festivals
Tags: goldberg variations, st lawrence jewry, tessa uys

Monday 31st July, St Lawrence Jewry, Guildhall Yard, London, EC2V 5AA, 1.00pm

St Lawrence Jewry Summer Chamber Music Festival 2017

20 lunchtime concerts starting at 1.00pm

Tessa Uys returns to the summer festival to open it with one of the finest of J. S. Bach’s compositions for keyboard, the Goldberg Variations BWV 988. A magnificent beginning to this year’s chamber music offering!

More concerts the same week:
Tuesday 1st AUGUST – Helen Bailey, soprano Chad Kelly, piano

Helen and Chad have chosen to include Bach’s Mein Herze Schwimmt in Blut and Monteverdi’s Lamento della Ninfa in their recital. In addition, a Mozart concert aria is scheduled together with a world premier composition from her husband, Jim Clements.

Wednesday 2nd – The Leading Ladies in ‘Sacred and Secular’

Singers Catrin Lewis, Suzi Saperia, and Rosemary Clifford, with their pianist Louisa Lam offer us Bach’s Suscepit Israel from the Magnificat together with music by Mozart, Fauré and a group of British folksongs including My love is like a red, red rose. Gershwin might also put in a brief appearance!

Thursday 3rd – Matthew Huber, cello

The first of three concerts which will present all six of Bach’s Suites for unaccompanied cello, composed when the master served as Kapellmeister in Köthen. Matthew will begin by performing No’s 1 and 6 BWV 1007-1012.

Friday 4th – Emmanuel Bach, violin

Our first opportunity to listen to the unaccompanied violin in this festival. Emmanuel has chosen two works of approximately equal length and unquestionable genius: Bach’s Partita No 3 in E major BWV 1006 and the Sonata No 3 in C major BWV 1005.

Admission free

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Date: August 2, 2017
Categories: Choral, Concerts, Festivals, Women musicians

Wednesday 2nd August, St Lawrence Jewry, Guildhall Yard, London, EC2V 5AA, 1.00pm

The Leading Ladies in ‘Sacred and Secular’

Singers Catrin Lewis, Suzi Saperia, and Rosemary Clifford, with their pianist Louisa Lam offer us Bach’s Suscepit Israel from the Magnificat together with music by Mozart, Fauré and a group of British folksongs including My love is like a red, red rose. Gershwin might also put in a brief appearance!

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Date: August 7, 2017
Categories: Choral, Concerts, Festivals, New Work, Women musicians

Monday 7th August, St Lawrence Jewry, Guildhall Yard, London, EC2V 5AA, 1.00pm

Sarah Campbell, trumpet Zeynep Özsuca-Rattle, piano

We warmly welcome the return of this talented musician and, making her first appearance with us, her equally accomplished pianist. The Vivaldi/Bach Trumpet Concerto in D major will feature, together with an arrangement of Bach’s Bist du Bei Mir.

Sarah Campbell was born in Wigan, Lancashire where she began learning cornet at the age of 8. In 2009, she received a scholarship to study at the Guildhall School of Music with Paul Beniston where she graduated with a First Class Honours Degree, before completing a Master of Arts at the Royal Academy of Music. Sarah is in demand as a versatile orchestral player throughout London and the rest of the UK. As Joint Principal T rumpet of the Southbank Sinfonia (2015) Sarah has performed Peter Maxwell Davies’ ‘The Lighthouse’ at the Royal Opera House, recorded with the BBC Concert Orchestra as well as touring to Hong Kong and Italy.

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Date: August 16, 2017
Categories: Choral, Concerts, Festivals

Wednesday 16th August, St Lawrence Jewry, Guildhall Yard, London, EC2V 5AA, 1.00pm

COFFEE CANTATA with Chad Vindin, piano Holly Brown, soprano Tom McDavid, tenor Adam Maxey, bass

Bach, apparently a coffee enthusiast, wrote this rare, secular work in 1735 in celebration of the beverage. In addition to this ‘operatic’ offering Chad will perform a keyboard work by Bach’s fifth child, his second son, the famed Carl Phillip Emanuel.

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Date: August 17, 2017
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, Festivals, New Work

Thursday 17th August, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London, 10.15pm

Bang on a Can late night Prom

Bang on a Can represents all that is most gleefully non-conformist and boundary-breaking in new music. Celebrating its 30th birthday this year, this pioneering American artistic collective and its three composer-directors, Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, bring their signature energy to this Late Night Prom, together with their six-piece amplified ensemble.

The All-Stars perform classic works by Wolfe, Lang and Louis Andriessen alongside an 80th-birthday tribute to Philip Glass and a world premiere by Michael Gordon, performed by the Proms Youth Ensemble. Expect propulsive rhythms and plenty of big grooves.

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Date: August 24, 2017
Categories: Concerts, Festivals, New Work, Women musicians

Thursday 24th August, St Lawrence Jewry, Guildhall Yard, London, EC2V 5AA, 1.00pm

Ensemble Canon Japan

Toshiko Matsudaira, soprano Yoko Yokoyama, mezzo-soprano Yoshiko Toyonaga, piano

Ensemble Canon (Canon means Flower Sound in Japanese) is a vocal ensemble consisting of 2 singers: Toshiko (Soprano) and Yoko (mezzo-soprano) with Yosinko, their pianist.
The group’s performances showcase the beauty of Japanese song.

From Bach’s Präludium Cis-Dor BWV 848 via Mendelsohn duets to Japanese Art Song and folk songs with such intriguing titles as Gooey, Gooey, Soft and Sticky, Pass Along and Where are you all from!

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Date: September 16, 2017
Categories: Concerts, Festivals
Tags: hebrides ensemble, schubert octet

16 September 2017 at 7.45pm Dirleton Kirk, Dirleton.

Performed by the renowned Scottish chamber ensemble, the Hebrides Ensemble, Schubert’s Octet is one of the best loved of all pieces of chamber music. Cast on a grand scale in six movements it is also a work of the most sublime genius – in turn profound and playful, virtuosic and lyrical. Howells’s Rhapsodic Quintet for clarinet and strings was composed just after the Great War and is one of his finest works, infused, like the music of Schubert, with songful melody.

This concert will be recorded by BBC Radio 3 for broadcast at a later date.

‘The ensemble beautifully articulated each and every phrase in this impeccable performance.’
Scotland on Sunday

‘One of the most innovative and thrilling ensembles in Europe.’ The Guardian

Also in the programme –
Howells: Rhapsodic Quintet

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Date: November 14, 2017
Categories: Broadcasts, Concerts, Experimental, Festivals, New Work
Tags: New Music Northwest Festival

New Music Northwest Festival

Tuesday 14th November 2017 at 7.30pm, The Studios MediaCityUK

Programme

David Horne Resonating Instruments
Tom Coult Two Games and a Nocturne
–
Psappha Ensemble
–
Laura Bowler 3811 Nautical Miles
Larry Goves New Work (world première)
Mario Duarte Metztli
Grace-Evangeline Mason Kintsukouroi
–
BBC Philharmonic
Mark Heron conductor
Overview

Resonating Instruments is rhapsodic and volatile, entwining the ensemble around a solo cimbalom. “An absorbing work” – The Times.

Two Games and a Nocturne alternates skittish piano solos with bluesy jamboree in a work that, in Coult’s own words, “does what it says on the tin” with its two playful games followed by a gently swaying night-time reverie.

In this joint concert with the BBC Philharmonic we give well-deserved second performances of two of Psappha 25th anniversary commissions.

Psappha has now allocated all tickets for this event. If you would still like to come to the performance you can apply for tickets through BBC Audiences. Applications for tickets opens on 30 October and close on 5 November. For more information please click HERE.

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Date: December 15, 2017
Categories: Choral, Concerts, Family, Festivals, New Work, Youth

Friday 15 – Sunday 17 December, 2017 at Snape maltings in Suffolk

A weekend of festive activities and concerts for both children and adults, including The Snowman and Paddington Bear’s First Concert with live orchestra and fun family activities around the site including workshops, storytelling sessions and a trail. Plus start the month with the Co-op Juniors’ Christmas Spectacular in the Land of Oz.

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Date: December 15, 2017
Categories: Choral, Concerts, Family, Festivals, Youth

Friday 15th December, 2017 at 7.30pm at Snape Maltings Concert Hall

ALDEBURGH VOICES

Whether it has its roots in frost-covered English woods and fields, or the splendour of baroque Venice, all the music in this concert is animated by a shared sense of wonder, mystery and joy. Vaughan Williams’ and Finzi’s seasonal favourites draw deeply on the English folk tradition, and make an enchanting foil for Vivaldi’s great (and rightly popular) shout of celebration. Together they add up to a luminous Christmas concert from Snape Maltings’ own chorus, under its charismatic director Ben Parry.

Programme

Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols 11’
Finzi In terra pax (Christmas scene) 15’
Vivaldi Gloria 30’

Performers

Aldeburgh Voices
The Suffolk Ensemble
Ben Parry conductor

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Date: December 16, 2017
Categories: Choral, Family, Festivals
Tags: bristol ensemble, messiah, tewkesbury abbey schola cantorum

Saturday December 16th, 2017 at 7.00pm – Tewkesbury Abbey

Tewesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum

A performance of Handel’s Messiah with Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum, accompanied by the Bristol Ensemble, conducted by Simon Bell with soloists Kirsty Hopkins (soprano), Tom Lilburn (counter-tenor), Julian Stocker (tenor) and Julian Empett (bass).

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Date: December 22, 2017
Categories: Concerts, Family, Festivals, Youth
Tags: bristol ensemble, christmas, st george's bristol

22nd December 2017 at 7.30pm, St George’s Bristol, Great George Street, Bristol BS1 5RR

A feel-good festive evening of carols and Christmas music – come and sing all your festive favourites with members of City of Bristol Choir, accompanied by The Bristol Ensemble and led in entertaining style by David Ogden. Bring the family for a wonderful evening of singing.

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Date: January 6, 2018
Categories: Choral, Concerts, Festivals, Period instruments
Tags: haydn creation, kings place, oae, period performance

Saturday 6th January 2018 at 7.30pm, Kings Place, London

Ádám Fischer conductor
Charlotte Beament soprano
James Way tenor
Dingle Yandell bass

Make Haydn’s Creation your first concert of 2018 with this intimate New Year performance at Kings Place.

Haydn’s oratorio The Creation is not only one of the composer’s most popular pieces, but is also one of the most vividly descriptive pieces of classical music there is. Each aspect of the story is brilliantly brought to life by Haydn’s expressive music.

Ádám Fischer conducts the Orchestra, with the Choir of the Age of Enlightenment and a trio of soloists from the Rising Stars programme. Kicking off Kings Place’s new Time Unwrapped series, it’s a wonderful way to start the new year.

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Date: January 26, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Experimental, Family, Festivals, New Work, Youth
Tags: bristol ensemble, comedy festival bristol

Friday 26th January at 7.30pm, Colston Hall, Bristol

Bristol’s stand-out annual comedy celebration returns for a fourteenth edition at Colston Hall – a unique celebration of the best onscreen classic silent comedy, live music and guest appearances by living legends of British comedy.

The host for this year’s gala show is soon to be announced and the film programme is an incredible triple-bill of laugh-out-loud comedy classics all accompanied by world class live musical accompaniment.

Buster Keaton’s best loved and most innovative film Sherlock Jr (1924) joins Charlie Chaplin’s A Dog’s Life (1918) to headline the show with live music.

Sherlock Jr is accompanied by the world premiere of a new, semi-improvised score composed by Guenter A. Buchwald and performed by the renowned European Silent Screen Virtuosi and members of Bristol Ensemble. A Dog’s Life features Chaplin’s own composition for the film and will be performed by a 15-piece Bristol Ensemble conducted by maestro Guenter A. Buchwald.

Plus: Laurel & Hardy’s hilarious comedy short Angora Love (1929) and live performance from innovative, award-winning visual comedy performers The Kagools and with our exciting guest host this looks like being our finest and funniest Gala event to date!

£10.50 to £60.00 incl. booking fee

Gold Premium Ticket Package:
£60.00* (limited to 50)
Access to exclusive post-show VIP after show experience with complimentary drink
Gala merchandise souvenir
Commemorative VIP lanyard (for access to post-show drinks)
One premium ticket located in the stalls
Exclusive limited souvenir event poster (not for sale)
Souvenir mini-programme
*Including all booking fees

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Date: March 15, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Family, Festivals
Tags: rush hour romantics, southbank sinfonia, st johns waterloo

Thursday 15th March, St John’s, Waterloo at 6.00pm

Berlioz Cléopâtre
Schumann Symphony No.3 ‘Rhenish’
Jonathan Berman Conductor

This concert is free with no ticket required.

Schumann once wrote, admiringly, that Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique was ‘written with drops of blood’. Both composers were ardent Romantics, eager to transplant their very souls into music. Both were entranced by all Beethoven had achieved whilst eager to prove themselves and outstep his shadow. You sense this in these works.

One hears young Berlioz’s own longing for recognition in Cleopatra’s appeal to the Gods for exaltation. Meanwhile, Schumann embarks on his own pastoral symphony, all the while seeking to detour from the path first trodden by Beethoven.

Part of Free Rush Hour Concerts

Date: March 24, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Family, Festivals, New Work
Tags: debussy festival, mirga, symphony hall birmingham

Saturday 24th March, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 7.00pm

Symphony Hall, Symphony Hall, 8 Centenary Square, Broad Street, Birmingham, B1 2EA

Debussy (orch. Matthews) La cathédrale engloutie, 5′
Bach Organ solo, 10′
Messiaen O Sacrum Convivium, 5′
Messiaen Dieu parmi nous, 10′
Debussy Danse sacrée et danse profane, 9′
Debussy Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, 35′

“What rules do you follow?”

…asked Claude Debussy’s music teacher. “Pleasure,” he replied. But pleasure can unlock whole worlds. 100 years after his death, join Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and the CBSO as they set out in search of the wonder, the power and the sheer beauty of music’s quietest revolutionary.

We’ll journey through sensual pleasures and sacred ecstasies, children’s games and bold new sounds, culminating in a concert performance of Debussy’s fairytale opera Pelléas et Mélisande. It’s an adventure that’ll involve our entire musical family, plus musical groups from across the whole city.

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Date: May 17, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Festivals, New Work, Song
Tags: clifton bristol concert, new music, severnside composers alliance, song

Thursday 17 May 7.30pm, St Paul’s Church, St Paul’s Rd. Clifton Bristol BS8 1LP

Concert 1: CONTEMPORARY ART SONG
 
Matthew Clark (baritone)
Jolyon Laycock (Tenor)
James D’Angelo & Philip Blandford (piano)
Matthew Heyse-Moore (clarinet)

SCA’s 2018 festival kicks off with a recital of contemporary art song featuring baritone Matthew Clark. James D’Angelo is accompanist in his own settings of the meditational poetry of Thomas Merton. Philip Blandford is the accompanist in Sulyen Caradon’s settings of translations of Russian poetry portraying an environment poisoned by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Clark and Blandford are joined by tenor Jolyon Laycock in songs that capture the ecstatic response of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins to the wild natural scenery of places such as Inversnaid Falls. On a lighter note songs by Peter Nickol (pictured) & Richard Pond are settings of James Turner, Veronica Gosling and W.H. Auden. Clarinettist Matthew Heyse-Moore is the accompanist in settings by Clement Jewitt of his own verses.

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Date: May 18, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Festivals, New Work
Tags: roaring fork wind quintet, Royal West of England Academy, severnside composers alliance

Friday 18 May 7.30pm, Royal West of England Academy, Queen’s Road Bristol BS8 1PX

Concert 2: PICTURES IN SOUND

The Roaring Fork Wind Quintet
Estelle Greeley (Flute)
Jennifer Mears (Oboe)
Claire King (Clarinet)
Eleanor Whitfield (Bassoon)
Stephen Macallister (Horn)

 
 
Programme:
Julian Dale – Clifton Hill Chimes
Jonathan Palmer – Crystal Eyes
Laura Kane – Quintet No. 2
James D’Angelo – Angels dancing
Peter Nickol (pictured) – Ultramarine
Jaques Ibert – Trois pièces brève
Eric Ewazen – Roaring Fork (1st movement)
David Greenhorne – Full Circle

The second concert in SCA’s 2018 Festival is of music inspired by visual art performed by the West Country’s leading wind ensemble Roaring Fork wind quintet in the wonderful space of the RWA Winterstoke Gallery. The group takes its name from music by American composer Eric Ewazen inspired by a visit to the Roaring Fork Falls in North Carolina. It is a key work in the quintet’s repertoire and shares the same qualities that they display in their playing: freshness, dynamism and accessibility.

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Date: May 20, 2018
Categories: Concerts, Festivals, New Work
Tags: archaeus string trio, underground theatre eastbourne

Sunday 20 May 2018 at 2.45pm, Under Ground Theatre, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN21 4TL

Archaeus String Trio are Ann Hooley (violin), Elizabeth Turnbull (viola) and Martin Bradshaw (cello).

The Archaeus Trio perform the final recital in the Under Ground Theatre’s official 19th season of Chamber Recitals including the String Trio Op.21 by Leonard Salzedo.

No strangers to premiere performance venues across the globe, the quartet enjoys a broad repertoire and several composers have written works specifically for the group including Antonin Tucapsky, Jeffrey Joseph, Jenni Roditi and Leonard Salzedo.

CD recordings include the quartet by Minna Keal; quartets by York Bowen with the quintet for bass clarinet with Timothy Lines; quartets by Ethel Smyth, Amy Beach and Susan Spain-Dunk; Leonard Salzedo; and quartets by Cyril Scott.

All five of their CDs have been received with great critical acclaim. The recording of Salzedo quartets and the sonata for violin and viola (written for and performed by Ann Hooley and Elizabeth Turnbull) was selected as Editor’s Choice in the Gramophone Magazine.

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Date: June 12, 2018
Categories: Choral, Concerts, Family, Festivals, New Work
Tags: bath abbey, bristol ensemble, when the war came

Tuesday 12 June at 6.30pm, Bath Abbey, Bath

Bristol Ensemble
Jon Monie narrator
Shean Bowers conductor

Jools Scott and Sue Curtis When The War Came

Bath Abbey will be holding an enchanting evening of choral music sung by a massed children’s choir of 300 pupils drawn from different primary schools in Bath.

The children are all part of the Abbey’s Schools’ Singing Programme, which brings the joy of singing to thousands of school children in Bath and surrounding areas.

When the War Came tells the story of six young people from a small village whose lives are changed forever when the Great War comes to them. Words: Sue Curtis; Music: Jools Scott.

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Date: July 1, 2018
Categories: Choral, Concerts, Family, Festivals, New Work, Period instruments
Tags: north walsham, orchestra of the age of enlightenment, paston papers, sarah rodgers

Sunday 1 July 2018, at 7.00pm, St Nicholas, North Walsham, Norfolk

Agnes (a pocket oratorio) by Sarah Rodgers receives its world premiere at St Nicholas, North Walsham, performed by Julia Doyle, the choirs of St Nicholas and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Commissioned by the Orchestra in partnership with Orchestras Live, Agnes uses the letters of Agnes Paston in helping to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the Paston family correspondence.

The concert, titled Reliving History, includes music by Purcell, Handel, Holborne, Warlock and Mozart.

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