The programme for Brighton Early Music Festival 2015 will be one of the country’s largest celebrations of WOMEN – as composers, performers, inspirational characters, muses and symbols – including the largest UK celebration of women composers of the past.
FESTIVAL highlights include a new production of the earliest opera by a woman composer – Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’Isola d’Alcina (1625), directed by Susannah Waters, with soloists including Anna Devin, Denis Lakey and Nick Pritchard.
Other female composers featured include Elisabeth Jaquet de la Guerre (London Handel Players with soprano Ruby Hughes),Barbara Strozzi, and Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (BREMF Consort of Voices with Clare Wilkinson).
The Orlando Consort will be presenting their new project Voices Appeared, which marries medieval music with the classic 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc. More dramatic elements include a retelling of the life of Hildegard of Bingen, and an intriguing programme that indicates Lucrezia Borgia’s cloistered daughter as a prolific composer.
Early music favourites are not neglected, with appearances by the Festival’s patron Emma Kirkby (Heroines of the Golden Age, with lutenist Jakob Lindberg), Joglaresa (Daughters of Abraham, featuring women’s songs from ancient Arabic, Jewish and Christian traditions) and The Carnival Band in a raucous evening on notorious women featured in broad sheet ballads.
This community-based Festival, not only features all three of its own choirs (BREMF Consort of Voices, BREMF Singers, and the BREMF Community Choir), there are also several opportunities to take part. Amateur singers can sign up for a workshop on the music of Cipriano de Rore, or a dynamic workshop led by Belinda Sykes of Joglaresa.
Brighton Early Music Festival also has a strong track record in supporting and mentoring young artists, with its flagship Early Music Live! ensembles scheme running for the eighth year in 2015/16.
Emerging early music ensembles will perform at the Festival on October 31 2015, and many of the smaller roles in the Caccini opera will be taken by auditioned young singers. Vocal ensembles will also have the chance to work with conductor Eamonn Dougan in a public workshop.
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