Lutes, Lute-song and the Lure of Opera in Mid 17th-century England
The inaugural event for the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Culture. A one-day conference organised in association with the Royal Musical Association and the CMRC, University of Southampton
Seventeenth-century English dramatic song has been consistently underrated in the histories that condition concert and record programming. This conference brings together musicological and literary scholars, lutemakers and performers for a day of interdisciplinary exploration. It includes a morning of presentations and round tables followed by a concert performance of masque music demonstrating the virtuoso improvisatory techniques under discussion, showing a level of showbusiness ambition hinted at in literary sources but often disguised in musical ones. Students from the Royal Academy of Music and Southampton University will be singing and dancing, and soloists Robin Blaze and Sophie Daneman will demonstrate the link with lyric song writing.
Academic contributors include Jeanice Brooks, Michael Burden, Gordon Callon, Tim Crawford, Ros King, David Lindley, Andrew Pinnock and Bruce Wood.