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| The Continuo Foundation round 11 grantees |
The Continuo Foundation has announced the recipients of its eleventh round of grants, awarding more than £100,000 to support Early Music projects across the UK. The Foundation received a record number of applications of a very high standard for this round, including some intriguing Purcell project proposals. The grant awards just announced include two projects chosen jointly with the Purcell Society as part of our partnership celebrating their 150th anniversary.
The first Purcell project is the Monteverdi String Band’s Wandering Prince, Unhappy Queen, created in collaboration with the Roman River Festival. Inspired by Dido and Aeneas, the project combines Purcell’s music with readings from Virgil, songs and ballads to restore the wider dramatic and literary context of the story for modern audiences. Oliver Webber of the Monteverdi String Band says:
‘Since I first performed ‘Dido’ in about 1995, I have had a yearning to expand it to give the audience the cultural and historical background that Purcell’s contemporaries would have had, to appreciate the pathos and drama even more fully. I hope this project will give them a fresh, vivid and poignant experience.’
The second Purcell-focused award will enable Istante Collective to create a new production of King Arthur. The ensemble notes that while the music is regularly performed, the full Restoration masterpiece is rarely presented complete. Their production will restore the spoken word and dance elements that are ‘rarely performed but an essential part of the work’s identity’.
- Vache Baroque will create a production of Francesca Caccini’s La liberazione di Ruggiero (1625), the oldest known opera written by a woman composer, for the Buxton International Festival
- The English Haydn Orchestra is supported for its Haydn’s Musical World concert series at the eponymous festival in Bridgnorth
- Projects from the Bloomsbury Players, Linarol Consort of Viols, The Morley Consort and Wessex Baroque Collective will take performances to venues across the Lake District, Scotland, Wales, Devon, Southwest England, and London.
- Ensemble Hesperi will work with the Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble in South Africa in what the ensemble describes as ‘an artistic and educational collaboration’ grown from a ‘shared passion… for high-quality, historically informed performance.’
- The Harmonious Society of Tickle-Fiddle Gentlemen will make world-premiere recordings of Alessandro Poglietti’s arrangements of motets by Bonifazio Graziani. The ensemble says these recordings will allow audiences to hear ‘these ear-tickling masterpieces’ and compare them with the original monody versions.
- The Royal Sackbut Collective will use its grant to present a launch concert for its debut album. The ensemble comments that the grant, ‘allows us to take our debut album project to the next level. Considering the struggles of entering the music industry as a young ensemble, we are beyond grateful to be given this opportunity and we cannot wait to make it happen!’
Further information from the Continuo Foundation’s website.
