Classical Preview: Modern take on musical masterpieces of the past
There are numerous Early Music Festivals taking place around the world, but nothing more attractive than the one presented each year in York, its variety of programmes placing it in a very different league.
Opening next Friday, it offers a feast of the world's most famous performers, the line-up including The Tallis Scholars, Ancient Academy of Music, I Faglioni, The Sixteen, and Stile Antico, a young vocal group bringing a golden radiance to our concert halls.
The music exhibits our ever increasing knowledge of the Baroque and beyond, period instruments taking us back to Medieval days in the hands of Ensemble Peregrina (July 11); coming through to the Renaissance with Songs of Rembrance from The Clerks (July 12); taking us on to the days of Handel with La Risonanza and the outstanding soprano, Emanuela Galli (July 12), and arriving in Haydn's day with the Academy of Ancient Music performing three symphonies and a violin concerto (July 18).
But most attention will be on the experimental concert by I Fagiolini, their Tallis in Wonderland, adding electronics, as they urge us to listen to polyphony in a way that will make us rethink the music.
The Sixteen offer their very personalised presentation, taking the audience from a celebration of Purcell's sacred music to mark his 350th birthday, to the great British church composer of today, James MacMillan (July 17).
Twenty-six events shoehorned into just nine days, the final day taking a look into the future, competitors from France, US, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and the UK, appearing in a the final of the Young Artists Competition, the much acclaimed, Stile Antico, among its previous successful prize winners.
York Early Music Festival, July 10-18, 01904 658338.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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