Popular hits of 17th-century Italy • Orlando Gibbons at 400 • Sir Nicholas Kenyon’s ‘HIPP revolution’
Saturday, 12 July 2025
- Continuo Foundation’s first Early Music Day takes place on 12 July in Oxford
- A partnership between Continuo Foundation and Oxford Festival of the Arts
- A showcase for Continuo’s support of excellence and emerging talent:
performances by the Linarol Consort of Viols and the Bellot Ensemble - A forum for ideas: Sir Nicholas Kenyon on the impact of Early Music in today’s culture
Continuo Foundation will present its inaugural Early Music Day in collaboration with the Oxford Festival of the Arts on 12 July at the Grove Auditorium, Magdalen College, Oxford.
The programme features two daytime concerts by established and emerging Early Music ensembles who have received encouragement and financial support from the Continuo Foundation through its annual grants.
Linarol Consort of Viols, joined by celebrated countertenor William Purefoy, will give a lunchtime concert of music by Oxford-born composer Orlando Gibbons, marking the 400th anniversary of his death. Performing on viols – replicas of a surviving instrument made by the great 16th-century Venetian viol-maker Francesco Linarol – the consort’s programme explores a wide range of Gibbons’ music for viol trio interspersed with songs, written at a time of religious turmoil and political upheaval in England, alongside those of his contemporaries, John Bull, William Byrd and Thomas Weelkes.
Continuo Early Music Day’s Emerging Ensemble Showcase features the Bellot Ensemble, with soloists Lucine Musaelian (soprano) and Kieran White (tenor), who will perform a programme of vocal and instrumental music from their debut album, Cupid’s Ground Bass (supported by a grant from Continuo Foundation), exploring the extremities of love through popular and innovative works from 17th-century Italy.
The day concludes with Sir Nicholas Kenyon, the distinguished broadcaster, journalist and eminent authority on Historically Informed Performance Practice, reflecting on the continuing influence of the Early Music revival over the past century, causing a sea-change in our music-making and listening habits.
Announcing the Early Music Day collaboration with the Oxford Festival of the Arts, Continuo Foundation’s Founder and CEO, Tina Vadaneaux said:
‘The Continuo Oxford Early Music Day reinforces Continuo’s mission to showcase the talent, originality and excellence to be found in today’s Early Music scene. Our collaboration with Oxford Festival of the Arts is an exciting new partnership with a leading cultural organisation to explore our shared history and cultural heritage through the prism of Early Music, and to celebrate the rich, distinctive appeal of live, historically-inspired performances.’
EVENT DETAILS
SAT 12 JUL 2025|
Linarol Consort of Viols with William Purefoy
Gibbons 400 – The Best Finger of the Age
Grove Auditorium, Magdalen College | 1pm | £15
Presented by Oxford Festival of the Arts
in collaboration with Continuo Foundation
David Hatcher viola da gamba
Claire Horacek viola da gamba
Timothy Lin viola da gamba
with William Purefoy countertenor
Celebrating the life and times of Oxford-born Orlando Gibbons, the Linarol Consort of Viols are joined by countertenor William Purefoy in an exploration of the music of one of the finest and most important English composers. Gibbons’s life spanned the tumultuous political and religious changes that defined the end of Elizabeth I’s long reign and the first decades of the Stuart dynasty. He enjoyed royal patronage at the courts of James I and Charles, Prince of Wales, as a member the Chapel Royal from 1605 and, at the end of his life, as the organist of Westminster Abbey. Few other composers have produced work of such a consistently high standard, ranging from deeply pious sacred music to virtuoso keyboard pieces and dramatic madrigals. This programme by the Linarol Consort will explore a range of his works, alongside those of his contemporaries, John Bull, William Byrd and Thomas Weelkes. William Purefoy needs no introduction, gracing theatre, chapels and cathedrals everywhere with his exceptionally limpid, yet ‘magnificent’ voice.
Bellot Ensemble
Cupid’s Ground Bass
Grove Auditorium, Magdalen College | 3pm | £12
Supported by a grant from Continuo Foundation
Presented by Oxford Festival of the Arts
in collaboration with Continuo Foundation
Kapsberger Toccata prima
Cavalli ‘Misero Apollo’ (Gli amori d’Apollo e di Dafne)
Sinfonia and ‘Ombra mai fu’ (Il Xerse)
Merula Chiaccona
Monteverdi ‘Oblivion soave’ (L’incoronazione di Poppea)
Strozzi ‘Amor dormiglione’
Cavalli Canzon/Sonata à 3
‘Delizie, contenti’ and ‘Se dardo pungente’ (Il Giasone)
Uccellini Aria quinta sopra la Bergamasca à 3
Strozzi ‘Che si può fare’
Monteverdi Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti
Bellot Ensemble
Lucine Musaelian soprano & viola da gamba
Kieran White tenor
Edmund Taylor violin
Maxim del Mar violin
Nathan Giorgetti viola da gamba
Daniel Murphy theorbo
Matthew Brown harpsichord
Known for their energetic and passionate performances, Bellot Ensemble present their Cupid’s Ground Bass debut album programme, which explores the extremities of love, through ground-breaking works of 17th-century Italy, highlighting both the vocal and instrumental innovations of the time. The concert will include not only some of the most beautiful arias from this period sung by the talented young singers, soprano Lucine Musaelian and tenor Kieran White, but also the group’s own instrumental diminutions and arrangements, often over the wonderful ‘ground bass’ themes popular at this time.
Sir Nicholas Kenyon
The Pied Pipers of Early Music:
A Century of Revolution in Musical Taste
Grove Auditorium, Magdalen College | 5pm | £12
Presented by Oxford Festival of the Arts
in collaboration with Continuo Foundation
Over the last hundred years and more, the revival of early music and historical performance styles has brought about a sea-change in our listening habits, and a radical expansion of the repertory. Sir Nicholas Kenyon explores some of the highlights of this revolution and the richness it has brought to our musical lives, including the significant contributions from Oxford musicians. Sir Nicholas Kenyon is a former Controller of BBC Radio 3, Director of the BBC Proms and the Barbican Centre. He edited the journal Early Music and the influential volume Authenticity and Early Music. He is now an Honorary Fellow of Balliol College Oxford and a Distinguished Affiliate Scholar of Pembroke College Cambridge, researching the history of the early music revival as a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow.
