The Choir of Royal Holloway
Rupert Gough director
The King, the Archbishop, a Spy, and the English Exiles
A programme of early music built around the trials and tribulations of English composers surviving the religious upheavals of 16th and 17th century England. This programme compares the dangerous dual life of William Byrd with three composers who were forced into exile. Exploring the music of Byrd, Bull, Dering, and Philips provides an opportunity for the telling of many stories about accusations of spying, plotting against the king, and travels around 17th century Europe.
The finer details…
‘Behind the Music’ FREE pre-concert talk: 6.45pm
Interval: 20 mins
Estimated finish: 9.30pm
Tickets
Front Nave: £28 full price | £3 child/student
Middle Nave: £18 full price | £9 under-35s | £3 child/student
Sides: £13 full price | £3 child/student
Apollo’s Cabinet
Apollo’s Jukebox
In 1672, violinist John Banister kicked off a real revolution by inviting paying guests into his own home, offering a simple but radical deal: you choose the music, we play it. For a shilling, the audience picked the programme. This was the birth of a new, democratic way of experiencing music – direct, personal, and connected. The idea caught on fast, shifting music from palace halls to pubs and city streets. This programme picks up that spirit today: with a musical menu in one hand and a shilling in the other, expect rowdy street songs, lively dances, moving arias, and gossip fresh from Georgian London’s tabloids. It’s about good music, great stories, and the audience calls the shots
The finer details…
‘Behind the Music’ FREE pre-concert talk: 6.45pm
Interval: 20 mins
Estimated finish: 9.30pm
Tickets
Front Nave: £28 full price | £3 child/student
Middle Nave: £18 full price | £9 under-35s | £3 child/student
Sides: £13 full price | £3 child/student
Joglaresa
Elsa Bradley percussion, dulcimer, & chorus, Essa Flett fidel & chorus
Jeremy Avis voice, Jonny Akerman percussion, dulcimer, fidel, & chorus
Louise Anna Duggan percussion, dulcimer, harp, & chorus
Victoria Couper voice & harp
Here we Come a-Carolling!
Joglaresa are back for Christmas and need YOU to come and sing along, raising the rafters with joyous medieval and traditional ‘caroles’! The audience are full-throatedly in the driving seat, provided with a beautifully illustrated booklet of lyrics & musical dots which encourages one and all to join in and celebrate the season singing along with the choruses of these ever-hummable festive favourites. Come straight to the concert and simply sing along with the festive classics or join Joglaresa for a short workshop beforehand to learn the nuts and bolts of a few numbers you didn’t know you always knew – mulled wine (and mince pies) included to warm up the vocal cords beautifully.
The finer details…
‘Behind the Music’ FREE workshop: 6.45pm
Interval: 20 mins
Estimated finish: 9.30pm
Tickets
Front Nave: £28 full price | £3 child/student
Middle Nave: £18 full price | £9 under-35s | £3 child/student
Sides: £13 full price | £3 child/student
The York Waits
Deborah Catterall and Gareth Glyn Roberts singers, narration
Tim Bayley, William Marshall, Lizzie Gutteridge, Susan Marshall, Anna Marshall shawms, sackbuts, recorders, curtal, harp, violin, guitar, bagpipes, hurdy gurdy
Fortune My Foe
The early 1600s might have been a period of pestilence and plotting, but they were also a golden age of music and drama. Using the wind and stringed instruments of the age and drawing on historical sources, long-established early music group The York Waits (who are based in the home city of Guy Fawkes) provide a soundtrack and narrative to the origins and aftermath of the notorious Gunpowder Plot of 1605. There are songs and dance tunes of Elizabethan and Jacobean England – many of which became popular throughout Europe – and Macbeth’s witches make an appearance. Instruments include sackbuts, shawms, harp, recorders, curtal, the early forms of violin and guitar, plus bagpipes and hurdy gurdy.
The finer details…
‘Behind the Music’ FREE pre-concert talk: 6.45pm
Interval: 20 mins
Estimated finish: 9.30pm
Tickets
Front Nave: £28 full price | £3 child/student
Middle Nave: £18 full price | £9 under-35s | £3 child/student
Sides: £13 full price | £3 child/student
Stile Antico
The Golden Renaissance
In this attractive and highly contrasted programme, Stile Antico select one piece from each of their sixteen award-winning albums to create a thrilling journey through some of the greatest music of the Renaissance. Exuberant works by composers such as Byrd, Gibbons, Tomkins, and Praetorius rub shoulders with tranquil motets by Taverner, Clemens non Papa, and Tallis, and the alluring sounds of Huw Watkins’s virtuosic The Phoenix and the Turtle, written especially for the group. Allegri’s timeless Miserere completes this mouthwatering programme.
Concert generously supported by Diane Holt and John & Jean Morgan
The finer details…
‘Behind the Music’ FREE pre-concert talk: 6.45pm
Interval: 20 mins
Estimated finish: 9.30pm
Tickets
Front Nave: £29 full price | £3 child/student
Middle Nave: £19 full price | £9 under-35s | £3 child/student
Sides: £14 full price | £3 child/student