Brabant Ensemble summer concerts
Funding of over £26,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council has helped Stephen Rice and The Brabant Ensemble disseminate research through concerts, conferences, broadcasts and a recording.
In June Stephen directed the group at the Tage alter Musik in Regensburg, Germany, for a programme of English and Spanish music, based around the Treaty of Westminster of 1511. On 8 July Stephen and the Ensemble performed live in the studio of BBC Radio 3’s In Tune, and were interviewed on air by Sean Rafferty. The following day, their concert for the Cheltenham Festival, entitled ‘Strange Canons’, explored the relationship between mathematics and music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Later in the month, at the York Early Music Festival, they performed a programme of English, French, and Spanish 16th century music that will be broadcast on Radio 3’s Early Music Show on 7 August.
Also in July, the group recorded oratorios by Domenico Mazzochi (1592-1660) with Southampton Creative and Performing Arts Fellow Erin Headley and her group Atalante. Next month, The Brabant Ensemble’s latest CD, of the Prophetiae Sibyllarum by Orlande de Lassus (1530/2-94), will be released on the Hyperion label. They will be filmed performing a motet for a BBC4 television programme on Henry VIII, to be aired in November. Later in August they will record their 10th CD for Hyperion, featuring music by Jean Mouton (c 1456-1522): Missa Tu es Petrus and the complete eight-part motets.