Ex Cathedra
directed by Jeffrey Skidmore
with Andrew Skidmore cello
Baroque Passion
Music by Bach, Purcell, Lotti, Domenico Scarlatti, Kuhnau, Monteverdi, Carissimi, and Charpentier.
Ex Cathedra returns with a programme of sublime music telling of the sacrifice, heartbreak and healing of the Easter story – heartrending as Mary weeps at the foot of the cross to Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater but concludes with optimism in Bach’s glorious motet Komm, Jesu, komm.
“…a heady mix of gloriously rich polyphony” – BBC Music Magazine
£26 | £18 | £12
(£1 children / students)
The Gesualdo Six
Owain Park director
Guy James countertenor
Joseph Wicks and Josh Cooter tenor
Michael Craddock baritone, Sam Mitchell bass
Josquin’s Legacy – The Court at Ferrara
Song of Songs | Lamentations and Deplorations
Music by Josquin de Prez, Brumel, Compère, Divitis, Festa, de Févin, L’Héritier, Mouton, and de la Rue.
The Gesualdo Six scored an immediate hit with the Warwick audience and, now back for the fourth time, will transport us to a famed renaissance court in northern Italy, through which Josquin and other Franco-Flemish composers passed.
“Ingeniously programmed and impeccably delivered ” – Gramophone
£26 | £18 | £12
(£1 children / students)
The Marian Consort
directed by Rory McCleery
Why do I use my paper, ink and pen?
Treasures from the manuscripts of Elizabethan England with music by Byrd, Clemens non Papa, Giles, Parsley, Parsons, Tallis and Van Wilder.
The Marian Consort – the young, dynamic group that made its BBC Proms debut last year and whose most recent CD release was chosen as one of Presto Music’s 2021 Recordings of the Year – comes to Warwick for the first time, bringing a programme that explores sacred vocal polyphony found in the beautiful handwritten manuscripts that were the preserve of Elizabethan music collectors.
“The singers perform with a yearning intensity which is just exquisite” – Gramophone
Concert generously supported by Warwick Town Council
£26 | £18 | £12
(£1 children / students)
Roderick Williams baritone and Paul Cibis piano
When I was One and Twenty
We simply couldn’t mark RVW’s 150th year without including a performance from Roderick Williams, the current master of English Song.
This superb programme has something special for everyone with music by Chopin, Schubert and Schumann, alongside RVW, Rebecca Clarke, CW Orr, and Leamington-born composer William Denis Browne who was at Cambridge with RVW and was killed at Gallipoli.
Generously supported by Michael & Halldóra Blair
Tickets: £17 reserved centre | £12 unreserved sides
Ensemble 360
Robert Plane clarinet
Matthew Denton and Claudia Ajmone-Marsan violins
Rachel Roberts viola, Gemma Rosefield cello
with James Gilchrist tenor
and Tim Horton piano
Howard Skempton The Moon is Flashing
Beethoven An die ferne Geliebte Op 98
Howard Skempton Piano Concerto
Vaughan Williams On Wenlock Edge
We are delighted to be finally putting on this concert which has been twice postponed due to Covid. The music of Howard Skempton makes a recognizable feature in our Festival programmes, and what a delight to have two works that are new to Leamington audiences this year. Both are works originally scored for soloist and full orchestra, which have been re-scored by the composer for chamber ensemble.
We are pleased to welcome James Gilchrist back to the area after a gap of some eight years. This concert was originally conceived to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th birthday back in 2020 and we couldn’t lose the opportunity of having a tenor of this eminence perform the great composer’s only song cycle, An die ferne Geliebte, to complement RVW’s sublime On Wenlock Edge in his birthday celebrations.
Concert generously supported by Maurice Millward
Tickets: £25 reserved centre | £17 unreserved sides
The Gesualdo Six
Owain Park director
Guy James countertenor
Joseph Wicks and Josh Cooter tenor
Michael Craddock baritone, Sam Mitchell bass
English Motets
Since their second visit to Warwick in October 2019, the Six have toured Australia and the States and been to several countries on the continent. They return with a programme of glorious music from renaissance England by Byrd, Forrest, Power, Sheryngham, Sheppard, Tallis, Tomkins, Weelkes and White that shows that, despite the religious and political upheavals, music in England flourished in a Golden Age lasting nearly two hundred years.
Concert generously supported by John and Jean Morgan
Christmas with The Carice Singers
George Parris conductor | Adrian Moore organ
The Carice Singers have been making waves and they come back to Leamington for a third time at Christmas.
George Parris, having finished his studies in Helsinki, now has posts in Croatia, Finland and Portugal and will work with Ex Cathedra in 2022 as an Associate Conductor. He has chosen a beautifully balanced programme of favourites like Silent Night and O Come all ye faithful to works by living English composers, Victoria, Berlioz and Sibelius and other Finnish composers.
Tickets include mulled wine and mince pies
The Binchois Consort
Andrew Kirkman conductor
Josquin des Prez 500
Founded by conductor Andrew Kirkman in 1995, The Binchois Consort have performed widely in Europe and the USA, and recorded thirteen discs on Hyperion Records to stunning critical acclaim. The Consort’s recordings have won numerous music industry awards, including Recording of the Month and Early Music Disc of the Year in Gramophone, and Diapason d’Or in Diapason.
In recent years pieces accepted as being by Josquin have been falling like dominoes, yet Josquin’s reputation – the reason we still care about him today – was built on a very broad range of music.
This programme shines a light on pieces both by Josquin and attributed to him, to celebrate his centenary year. It offers a powerful insight into some of his grandest works and those now attributed to others, but were once considered so great they could only have been composed by the master himself.
“The Great Outdoors…”
This concert brings Roderick Williams to the new King’s High School campus for the first time. It is a chance to celebrate King’s Hall as a new venue for Warwick and also the new Music Department building for King’s High School and Warwick Prep too.
Williams has been hailed as a national treasure and a supreme interpreter of English Song. This programme of works by the great English masters – Butterworth, Ireland, Warlock, Gurney, Vaughan Williams and Britten – shows Roderick at his absolute best.
Tickets include a glass of wine.
Concert generously sponsored by Wright Hassall
Toward the Dawn
Stile Antico return to Warwick, bringing a new programme that charts a course from twilight to sunrise, echoing both the rhythms of church liturgy and the mediaeval experience of night – both seductive and unsettling in equal measure.
Taverner‘s mighty Ave Dei Patris Filia, based on a chant for Matins, stands at the end of a delicious sequence of sacred music, chansons, and madrigals by both English and Continental composers such as Tallis, Byrd, Lassus and Monteverdi, and featuring Allegri‘s ethereal Miserere Mei.