NEMC announces partnership with the University of Southampton
The National Centre for Early Music (NCEM) has created a formal partnership with Music at the University of Southampton, one of the UK's leading centres for early music performance research.
The NCEM is administered by the York Early Music Foundation and funded by Arts Council England, Yorkshire. This important partnership builds on the recent appointment of Southampton's Head of Early Music, Elizabeth Kenny, as one of the Artistic Advisors to the NCEM's York Early Music Festival.
Over the coming months the NCEM and Music at Southampton will mount a semi-staged production of 17th-century composer Henry Purcell's King Arthur for the 2011 York Early Music Festival. This production follows hot on the heels of the highly successful collaboration between the two organisations in Theatre of the Ayre's Venus and Adonis by John Blow, directed by Elizabeth Kenny, which was performed at the Wigmore Hall (where it was recorded for release on the Wigmore Live label), at Turner Sims in Southampton, and at the York Early Music Festival in 2010. The final performance of Venus and Adonis will take place in January 2011 at Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre.
Announcing the new partnership, Delma Tomlin, Director of the National Centre for Early Music, commented: "We're looking forward to working closely with the University of Southampton, not only on our forthcoming production of King Arthur for next year's festival, in which we will also both partner the Purcell Society, but also in exploring ways in which we can unite our resources across programming, tours and importantly our educational tools and outreach project, which will begin with an education resource for King Arthur for primary school children."