Current Events

Chelys Consort: Ibrahim Aziz, Jenny Bullock, Kate Conway, Alison Kinder, Sam Stadlen ‍

Fair Oriana: Angela Hicks & Penelope Appleyard

We are thrilled to bring you two well established ensembles in an exciting collaboration. The beautiful, clear voices of Fair Oriana join forces with Chelys Consort of Viols to bring A Musical Menagerie, Renaissance, Jacobean and Stuart songs and instrumental pieces that feature animals. There are madrigals about shepherdesses and their sheep, sacred pieces that include a serpent and a dragon, and a couple of lovely songs by Dowland in his 400th anniversary year.

Chelys have garnered a reputation for their faithful yet fresh interpretations of the consort repertoire. The members of Chelys are among the UK’s leading exponents of the viol, particularly as a consort instrument, and their consort viols are strung entirely in gut (not strings overwound with metal), which lends them a particularly distinctive sound. They have played with ensembles across the world of Early Music including Fretwork, Ensemble Moliere, the Rose Consort of Viols, the Linarol Consort; teaching on courses including for the Benslow Trust, NORVIS, the Irish Recorder and Viol Summer School, and the Easter Early Music Course; and coaching viol consorts at Morley College, the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music.

Specialist early music sopranos Angela Hicks and Penelope Appleyard formed Fair Oriana in 2019, and, together with their instrumental colleagues, mix historical music with entertaining staging, contemporary influences and, varying genres such as folk, jazz and cross-over.

They perform their chamber programmes in concert series around the UK and internationally. These have included the Three Choirs Festival, the Ryedale Festival, Sherborne Abbey Festival, the Resonanzen Festival at Wien Konzerthaus and many others. They have appeared three times in the Mozartsaal of Vienna’s Konzerthaus. They have appeared on Women’s Radio Station’s Future Classic Women Awards, BBCRadio 3, Classic FM online, BBC Radio Norfolk and are played regularly on Ancient FM. They were selected for Musica’s International Young Artist Presentation in 2021, to have been finalists in the NCEM International Young Artists Competition 2022.

‍PROGRAMME

Intro
John Bennett (1575 – 1614) All Creatures Now
Insect Hotel
John Dowland (1563 – 1626) Lowest Trees Have Tops
Josquin des Prez (1450-5 – 1521) Grillo
Dowland Earl of Essex His Galliard
Dowland It was a time when silly bees could speak
Reptile House
Ruggiero Giovannelli (1560 – 1625) Estote Fortes In Bello
Thomas Ravenscroft (1588 – 1635) The Frog and Mouse Wedding
Richard Dering (c.1580 – 1630) Dering Fantasia No 3 a5
Richard Dering (c.1580 – 1630) Factum est Silentium
Farmyard
William Byrd (1540 – 1623) Mistress Had a Little Dog
Heinrich Isaac (1450 – 1517) Der Hund
John Playford (1623 – 1686) (arr. A Kinder) Pegasus
John Farmer (1570 – 1601) Fair Phyllis I Saw Sitting All Alone
INTERVAL

The Aviary
Thomas Simpson (1582 – c.1628) on ‘Bonny Sweet Robin’
Edward Johnson (fl. 1572 – 1601) Blessed Bird
John Bartlet (fl. 1606 – 1610) All the Birds
Primates
Robert Johnson (1583 – 1633) Baboons’ Dance
Thomas Weelkes (1576 – 1623) The Ape the Monkey and Baboon
The Elephant In The Room!
Saint Saens (arr. S. Stadlen) Elephant
The Aquarium
Weelkes Thule, The Period of Cosmography
Luca Marenzio (1553/4 – 1599) Sinfonia from Secondo Intermedio La Pellegrina
Marenzio Chi Dal Delfino Aita
Birds of Prey
Thomas Ravenscroft The Three Ravens
Thomas Vautor (fl. 1592 – 1619) Sweet Suffolk Owl