Programs
John Milton’s Comus
A performance of John Milton’s masque Comus directed by Heather Davies with the original songs by Henry Lawes and dance music by his brother William played by Christopher Verrette and the MIO String Band.
Pleasure Might Make Her Read - Poems and Music for the Sidneys
Sir Philip Sidney was a flourescent courtier who, in his short career, touched all the bases of Elizabethan courtiership: fighter of the Spanish, poet and lover and outspoken opinion-haver on Elizabeth’s marriage.
Masques and Theatre Music
While the rambunctious rabble who attended Shakespeare’s Globe as the groundlings are well known, it should come as no surprise that the more elite audience who could afford performances at the indoor Blackfriars Theatre were treated to the deployment of subtle musical effects and allusions and dances imported from the fabulous (and fabulously expensive) Court Masque entertainments.
Margaret Board’s Lutebook
The lucky young lady Margaret Board, born the daughter of a wealthy merchant in 1600, had for a lute teacher John Dowland, the most famous lute player in Europe in the first decades of the 17th century.
Anne Boleyn's Songbook
The manuscript known as the Anne Boleyn Songbook tantalizingly has Anne’s name (a signature?) and her father’s motto penned on one of the pages. It would appear, from its contents, to be almost all church music, and so to be sung by a choir made up of men and boys, but its layout and the attractive decorations of initial letters show it is clearly not for a workaday chapel choir.