Please note: advance bookings for this event have now closed, but there will be plenty of tickets available on the door, so do come along tonight!

The programme

Join Leith Hill Timeline Choir (conducted by Stef Conner) and Juice for a vibrant performance of Shakespeare-inspired vocal music, in honour of the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death. Our eclectic programme evokes the boisterous atmosphere of a Globe performance, in which people from all levels of Elizabethan society – from the richest to the poorest – came together to be captivated by drama. Our centrepiece is a new commission by Kerry Andrew, for Timeline Choir and Juice, which incorporates inspiration from renaissance texts, madrigals, folksong and Elizabethan popular songs into Kerry’s edgy, experimental style, to animate themes and imagery explored in Shakespeare’s plays. We are very excited to be premiering a new piece by such a creative and accomplished composer!

Kerry’s work will be paired with compositions by the English renaissance composers Robert Johnson, whose music was heard in the earliest performances of Shakespeare’s plays, and Thomas Ravenscroft, who, unusually, drew his inspiration from the popular songs of the day and the sounds of the street, such as the cries of markets traders, children’s game songs and tunes for making merry. We’re singing the Elizabethan pieces in Original Pronunciation (Shakespeare’s accent), so you’ll hear all the fabulous rhymes, puns and peculiarities that get lost when the music is sung in Modern English. Ravenscroft also had a particular fondness for bird-related rounds, madrigals and part-songs, which, coupled with the prevalence of metaphor-laden references to birds in Shakespeare’s work, inspired the title ‘British Bard-Song!’. Te-wit te-woo!

Also thrown into the mix are Shakespeare settings by other excellent contemporary choral composers, including James Macmillan, Damien Harron, Wilfrid Mellers and Stef Conner, as well as original arrangements by Juice members Sarah Dacey and Anna Snow.

Pre-concert Workshop: 5:30–6:30pm

An English renaissance singing workshop with Stef Conner precedes the concert. It is open to all and no singing or sight-reading experience is required. Participants will sing rounds and catches by Thomas Ravenscroft, some of which were used in Shakespeare’s plays, in Original Pronunciation (Shakespeare’s accent). One of the pieces from the workshop will feature in the concert and workshop participants are warmly invited to join in.

Tickets

Advance bookings have now closed, but there are plenty of tickets still available, which can be purchased on the door.