Saturday 7 March 7.30pm – c.8.45pm
£14 (£12 concessions | £5 students)

University of York Baroque+ Day 2026: Friendship and Obsession

This year, the University of York’s annual takeover of NCEM takes you on a magical tour: from the 18th century horticultural craze, to the ‘guitar mania’ of the early 19th century, to the legendary Devil’s Tavern on Fleet St, where the obsession was music itself as Handel’s musical rivals gathered to share their latest compositions…

Travel back in time with York’s student musicians to London’s “Devil’s Tavern” in eighteenth-century Fleet Street. Here, in 1731, composer Maurice Greene established the ‘Apollo Academy’, a rival to Handel’s ‘Academy of Ancient Music’. The Wednesday evening concerts of the academy took place in the tavern’s ‘Great Room’, and were filled with a variety of performances by Greene’s friends and students, with the maestro himself on the harpsichord. As a semi-private performance venue, the tavern concerts were perfect for composers to try out new works ahead of their first public performances. Although the club was exclusive, invited guests were welcome – York-born composer John Hebden, now resident at the Drury Lane theatre, regularly delighted the tavern’s audience with a bassoon or cello concerto. Our programme will recreate a relaxed evening with Greene and his circle, featuring instrumental and vocal music by Greene, Bononcini, Festing, Hebden, Handel, and more!

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