WHATS ON
AT THE NCEM
York Early Music Festival 2025
Friday 4 – Friday 11 July
FRETWORK
Friday 4 July 7.30pm – 9.00pm
Reserved Central Seats: £40.00 (£38.00 concessions)
Reserved side aisles: £35.00 (£33.00 concessions | £10.00 under 35)
Venue: Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall
Richard Boothby, Emily Ashton, Emilia Benjamin, Joanna Levine, Sam Stadlen & Jonathan Rees viols
with Helen Charlston mezzo soprano
My Days: Songs and Fantasias by Orlando Gibbons
The festival opens with the first of our tributes to Orlando Gibbons, one of the most imaginative, creative and assured composers this country has ever produced (a second concert is presented by the Rose Consort of Viols and Ex Corde on Wednesday 9 July). Gibbons’ stellar career at the Jacobean court (explored in John Bryan’s lecture on Monday 7 July) was cut short by his sudden death 400 years ago in 1625. Fretwork present a selection of his wonderfully wrought Madrigals and Mottets sung by YEMF Artistic Adviser Helen Charlstib, together with some of his most compelling pieces for viols. These range from cheeky dialogue for two treble viols to exhilarating grandeur of dances and fantasias for six instruments. Nico Muhly’s My Days has been composed as a moving tribute to Gibbons, setting a section of the autopsy report into his death, and honouring a great English Genius.
‘Album after album from viol consort Fretwork affirms their status as an ensemble of supreme musicianship’ Gramaphone Magazine
THE FOUR SEASONS
Saturday 5 July 10.30am – 11.30am
£12.50
Venue: Bedern Hall
Vivaldi’s set of four wildly evocative violin concertos ranks among the most popular pieces of music on the planet, treasured in record collections, constantly reimagined, and an evergreen on-hold soundtrack. But how well do we really know them? Who did he write them for, and where, and when? Was he a poet, a priest, or even a spy? Bring your questions to this open discussion with Dr Hannah French, author of the soon-to-be-published The Rolling Year: a companion to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.
PABLO ZAPICO baroque guitar
Saturday 5 July 5.15pm – 6.15pm
£22.00 (£20.00 concessions | £10.00 under 35)
Venue: NCEM
The First Spanish Guitar
Pablo makes a welcome return to York for this recital of music by composers and players who in the 17th and 18th centuries first shaped the repertoire for Spanish guitar and raised it to a position of fame and prestige. With works by masters from Spain including Sanz, Murcia and Guerau, and illustrious Italians Corbetta, Bartolotti and Roncalli, the programme presents an attractive journey from popular song-tunes and dances to compositions of high academic refinement.
THE TALLIS SCHOLARS
Saturday 5 July 7.30pm – 9.30pm
Reserved seating front nave: £40.00
Reserved seating rear nave: £30.00
Unreserved seating side aisle: £15.00 (£10.00 under 35)
Venue: York Minster
directed by Peter Philips
Glorious Creatures
Taking its title from a substantial new setting of words by Thomas Traherne, commissioned by the Tallis Scholars from Nico Muhly, tonight’s programme explores how nature beautifies our lives, from the sun in the sky to the flowers that grow in our gardens (and by extension the grapes from which we make wine!). The human artifice of creating a garden is also symbolised by de Rore’s Descendi in hortum meum and the grandly canonic writing of Sebastián de Vivanco’s Magnificat.
“The sound coming from the Tallis Scholars almost surpassed the humanly possible” The Telegraph
MINSTER MINSTRELS
Sunday 6 July 11.00am – 12.00pm
£12.50 (£5.00 under 35 | free to NCEM Patrons and YEMF Friends)
Venue: NCEM
directed by Nina Kümin
The NCEM’s youth ensemble for school-age musicians presents a selection of chamber pieces by two giants of baroque instrumental music: Purcell and Telemann. Featuring lighthearted dances and soothing slower movements, it promises to amuse and delight, the perfect accompaniment to a relaxed tea or coffee. The concert will also feature new compositions written for the group, taking inspiration from baroque chamber practices.
The Minster Minstrels is run in partnership with York Music Centre with support from York Music Hub and the Mayfield Valley Arts Trust. If your child is interested in joining this thriving young group, please contact support@ncem.co.uk
THE EARLY MUSIC SHOW
Sunday 6 July 4.45pm
Tickets are free but please book in advance.
Venue: NCEM
We welcome to the NCEM stage the 2025 York Early Music Lifetime Achievement Award Winner singer and broadcaster Catherine Bott, introduced by Artistic Adviser Lindsay Kemp
The York Early Music Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award honours major figures who have made a significant difference in the world of early music.
The previous winners have been:
Kuijken brothers (2006)
Dame Emma Kirkby (2008)
James Bowman (2010)
Jordi Savall (2012)
Andrew Parrott (2014)
Anthony Rooley (2016)
Trevor Pinnock (2018)
Catherine Mackintosh (2020/22)
Crispian Steele-Perkins (2023)
The Lifetime Achievement Award will be followed by a live hour long broadcast of the popular Early Music Show – featuring selected guests from the Festival. Presented by Hannah French.
LE CONSORT
Sunday 6 July 7.30pm – 9.30pm
Reserved Central Seats: £40.00 (£38.00 concessions)
Reserved side aisles: £35.00 (£33.00 concessions | £10.00 under 35)
Venue: Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall
directed by Théotime Langlois de Swarte with Catherine Bott reader
The Four Seasons
A celebration of the 300th anniversary of the first publication of Vivaldi’s now world-famous Four Seasons, presented by an exciting star of the newer generation of baroque violinists. The four vividly pictorial and virtuosic violin concertos are interlaid with other works by Vivaldi, and preceded by readings of the sonnets (perhaps written by the composer himself) that set out the scenes he evoked in music with such flair, brilliance and humour.
“A bold, brilliant and sensual interpretation …. A beautiful ‘Venetian mirror’, whose multiple reflections always lead the eye towards a new horizon.” Diapason
ORLANDO GIBBONS
And Musical Life In Jacobean England
Monday 7 July 10.30am – 11.30am
£12.50
Venue: Bedern Hall
400 years after his death, the music of Orlando Gibbons continues to enthral us. His anthems are sung in churches and cathedrals, madrigals like The Silver Swan enjoyed by amateur singers, and his fantasias loved by viol players. John Bryan, Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Huddersfield, investigates Gibbons’s crucial role in providing music not only for the Chapel Royal and King James’s Private Musick, but also songs, consort and keyboard music for his friends and patrons.
UNIVERSITY OF YORK BAROQUE ENSEMBLE
Monday 7 July 1.00pm – 2.00pm
£12.50 (£7.00 under 35)
Venue: NCEM
with Ensemble Hesperi
Mary-Jannet Leith recorders Magdalena Loth-Hill violin Florence Petit cello Thomas Allery harpsichord
Concertos on the Edge
Join us as we head to Leipzig for Bach’s stormy Harpsichord Concerto in D minor BWV1052*, likely performed by his own students at the famous coffeehouse concerts of the Collegium Musicum. Telemann’s virtuosic concerto for two recorders, written during a prolific period of composition in Frankfurt, shows an unparallelled understanding of the instrument. A lively string concerto by John Hebden brings us home to York, and Johann Stamitz’s early clarinet concerto channels the newly fashionable galant style from the very heart of Mannheim’s musical court.
THE SIXTEEN
Monday 7 July 7.30pm – 9.30pm
Reserved seating front nave: £40.00
Reserved seating rear nave: £30.00
Unreserved seating side aisle: £15.00 (£10.00 under 35)
Venue: York Minster
Angel of Peace
In an age of resurgent conflict and frenetic demands on our attention, a slice of tranquillity in many forms courtesy of luminous, purifying music traversing six centuries. From the enraptured songs of the medieval abbess Hildegard of Bingen to the magical realm of a brandnew work by Anna Clyne, music from across the centuries speak of peace and acceptance, and the ecstatic joy their reassurance can bring. The concert takes its title from words by Cardinal Newman on the challenge of existence, suggesting that life’s deepest valleys only make its highest mountains feel more wonderful.
“The Sixteen are brilliant at lifting us up to another world” The Telegraph
SUMMER NIGHTS
Monday 7 July 10.00pm – 11.00pm
£22.00 (£20.00 concessions | £10.00 under 35)
Venue: NCEM
Théotime Langlois de Swarte violin
Hanna Salzenstein cello
Nora Dargazanli harpsichord
Join three rising stars of the baroque in an exhilarating exploration of the music of Vivaldi and Vitali.
YORKSHIRE BAROQUE SOLOISTS
Tuesday 8 July 1.00pm – 2.00pm
£24.00 (£22.00 concessions | £10.00 under 35)
Venue: NCEM
directed by Peter Seymour
Bethany Seymour soprano
Edwina Smith flute Lucy Russell, Agata Daraskaite violins
Alan George viola Rachel Grey cello Rosie Moon violone
Bach Sacred And Secular
JS Bach Cantata ‘Ich habe genug’, BWV82a JS Bach Cantata ‘Non sa che sia dolore’, BWV209 Bach’s famous cantata Ich habe genug takes its subject from the ‘Song of Simeon’, the biblical passage in which the aged Israelite recognises the infant Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah and declares himself ready to depart this world. The result is one of Bach’s most profoundly moving works, suffused with what has been described as ‘nostalgia for death’. The secular cantata Non sa che sia dolore bids a more cheerful kind of farewell, this time to one of Bach’s friends who was leaving town.
yorkshirebaroquesoloists.org.uk
CANTORIA
Tuesday 8 July 7.00pm – 8.30pm
£28.00 (£26.00 concessions | £10.00 under 35)
Venue: St Lawrence Church
directed by Jorge Losana
Inés Alonso, Carmen Callejas sopranos Belén Herrero mezzo-soprano Oriol Guimerà counter-tenor
Jorge Losana tenor Lluís Arratia baritone
Pablo Albarracín, Sara Balasch violins Marc de la Linde viola da gamba Jeremy Nastasi guitar, archlute
Joan Seguí harpsichord organ Paula Piñero percussion
A La Fiesta!
The joy and optimism of popular cultures blends with the mysticism and devotion of the music of the Spanish Baroque. Acclaimed vocal quartet Cantoria return to York with an enlarged ensemble to bring us the fascinating 17th century works, descendants of the ensaladas and Renaissance that first brought the group to attention. They offer a concert full of colour, syncopation, humour and biblical stories through these extraordinary pieces, which were used by bishops to draw the faithful to Mass and ensure they left the churches with a smile.
‘singing in their native language, they demonstrate precise and careful diction, as well as a remarkable quality of listening, without losing the expected spontaneity’ Diapson
ROSE CONSORT OF VIOLS
Wednesday 9 July 1.00pm – 2.00pm
£24.00 (£22.00 concessions | £10.00 under 35)
Venue: NCEM
Ibrahim Aziz, John Bryan, Alison Crum, Andrew Kerr, Roy Marks viols
with Ex Corde
Paul Gameson director
Anna Snow, Alisun Pawley, Caroline Sartin, Jason Darnell, Christopher O'Gorman, Jonty Ward
The Silver Swan Orlando Gibbons’s Music ‘Apt For Viols And Voyces’ When Gibbons published his First Set of Madrigals and Mottets, he marketed it as ‘apt’ for both viols and voices, and it certainly works beautifully when performed by a combination of the two ensembles, which he also used in verse anthems such as ‘See, see, the Word is incarnate’. His ‘Cries’, based on the shouts of London Street vendors, bring the city’s outdoors vividly to the ear, while his In nomines demonstrate his superb ability to imbue the age-old concept of plainsong-based composition with vibrant new life.
HEAVEN & HELL …. YOURS TO CHOOSE
Wednesday 9 July 6.30pm – 9.45pm
£45.00 including interval drinks
Venue: Merchant Adventurers Hall
Helen Charlston mezzo soprano
Toby Carr theorbo
Inspired by the vivid music of Purcell, Charpentier, Stozzi and Monteverdi, this programme is specially curated for the glorious surroundings of the Merchant Adventurers Hall and showcases the premiere of a 2025 NCEM commission from composer Anna Disley-Simpson.
Gramophone award winners Helen Charston and Toby Carr ferry us to the underworld to find out what lies on the other side. In a journey that tussles between doubt and faith, encounters the darkest hell in the warmest embrace and confronts the reality of free will, what will your choice be?
‘Charlston’s voice is little short of miraculous… a true star’ The Evening Standard
‘Carr’s theorbo playing is sensuous and vivid’ The Guardian
ENSEMBLE BASTION
Thursday 10 July 1.00pm – 2.00pm
£22.00 (£20.00 concessions | £8.00 under 35)
Venue: NCEM
Maruša Brezavšček recorder
Martin Jantzen viola da gamba
Elias Conrad Pfetscher theorbo
Mélanie Flores harpsichord
Phantasma: Visions of Heaven and Hell
The 17th century was a time of devastation when famine, plague and war ravaged Europe. Yet out of the turbulent age grew the stylus phantasticus, a musical style if daring innovation marked by the bizarre and unpredictable, reflecting the tension between celestial serenity and infernal chaos. The EUBO Development Trist’s ‘most promising ensemble’ from the 2024 YEMF Young Artists Competition explore these contrasts in Biber’s ethereal Passacaglia and Froberger’s poignant Tombeau alongside works by Castello, Monteverdi and Cazzati, revealing the remarkable interplay between divine light and earthly tumult.
SOLLAZZO
Thursday 10 July 7.00pm – 8.00pm
£28.00 (£26.00 concessions | £10.00 under 35)
Venue: NCEM
Carine Tinney soprano
Eugénie de Mey alto
Jonatan Alvarado, Lior Leibovici, tenors
Franziska Fleischanderl psaltery
Christoph Sommer lute
Natalie Carducci vielle
Roger Helou organetto
Anna Danilevskaia vielle and direction
The Angels are Singing
While late-medieval poets explored a dizzying range of emotions from heavenly ecstasy to the hellish torments of unrequited love, their musician colleagues were happily setting sacred themes to well-known secular tunes. A song describing ‘graceful women and pretty girls’ could be transformed into an image of angelic choirs, or a suave love song turned into a graceful hymn to the Virgin. Performing music from French and Italian manuscripts, Sollazzo paint a picture of this vivacious mingling of the mundane and the spiritual in songs and virtuoso instrumental pieces by Tapissier, Landini, Ciconia and others.
“Technical brilliance and that sense of engagement with both the audience as well as each other” The York Press
AYRES EXTEMPORAE
Friday 11 July 1.00pm – 2.15pm
£22.00 (£20.00 concessions | £8.00 under 35)
Venue: NCEM
Xenia Gogu Mensenin violin
Víctor García García piccolo cello
Teresa Madeira cello
Erbarme Dich!
We welcome the overall winners of the 2024 York Early Music Young Artists Competition back to the NCEM as they prepare to record their winning CD with the Chair of Judges, Phillip Hobbs of Linn Records.
A musical journey that describes the human condition: the torment and despair for mistakes made and the acceptance of imperfection and self-forgiveness. The path of personal absolution is explored in arrangements of arias from Bach cantatas addressing the themes of sin, mercy and redemption, set alongside pieces by Locke and Biber that reflect the atmosphere of each moment of the spiritual process.
“Three outstanding performers show how well they intuitively understood and communicated this music. A real joy and, to quote Tina Turner, Simply the Best!” York Press
ACADEMY OF ANCIENT MUSIC
Friday 11 July 7.00pm – 9.00pm
Reserved Central Seats: £40.00 (£38.00 concessions)
Reserved side aisles: £35.00 (£33.00 concessions | £10.00 under 35)
Venue: Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall
directed by Bojan Čičić violin
An evening of music by JS Bach, who learned the skill and flair of writing violin concertos from studying examples by Vivaldi. Alongside the well-known concertos in A minor and E major, Britain’s acclaimed baroque orchestra and its leader perform an audacious reconstruction of a harpsichord concerto, bringing it back to its original version for violin. The programme takes us heavenwards with the famous "Air on a G string" from the third Orchestral Suite.
“An album that splendidly showcases Bach’s special pleasure: music that engages both heart and head, and leaves us humbled, disarmed and uplifted.” The Times