To mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of John Dowland's Lachrimae, Concordia devised a programme contrasting the 7 Lachrimae Pavans with 7 new works, which was premiered at the Cheltenham Festival in July last year. Composers including Sir John Tavener and Gavin Bryars took their inspiration from the originals to produce a set of pieces which enhance and extend the emotional range of the originals. As a complement to this, the Society for the Promotion of New Music ran a project introducing 7 emerging composers to the viol and lute through a series of workshops overseen by members of Concordia and curated by spnm's artistic director Deirdre Gribbin. You can read about the project in an article by Mark Levy from the July/August edition of spnm's magazine, New Notes. Concordia will be presenting the programme at the Purcell Room on London's South Bank on Tuesday 17 May 2005, when the new works will receive their London premieres.

1605: Treason and Dischord

Concordia's major project for 2005/6 is a high-profile nationwide tour of the UK with The King's Singers, to mark the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. The programme tells the story of the notorious attempt to blow up the King and Parliament using barrels of gunpowder stored under the House of Lords. The Plot was devised by Catholic Robert Catesby and his band - including Guy Fawkes, who was to light the fuse. A specially-written script will complement music by Catholic William Byrd - who wrote his Mass Propers in 1605 - by Richard Dering and Peter Philips, Catholics who fled religious persecution in England, and by Protestant Thomas Weelkes, including his anthem O Lord how Joyful is the King, written to celebrate the King's survival of the attack on his life. The tour runs in parallel with the Gunpowder Trail, a series of exhibitions and events up and down the country marking the anniversary, and several concerts will be promoted in support of The Prince's Trust. After a gala dinner launching the tour at the Tower of London, where the leading conspirators including Fawkes were imprisoned, the tour will take in some wonderful venues, many with connections to the Plot: the Brighton and Bath Festivals, Lichfield Cathedral (in the area where the Plot was hatched), the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford (close to the Catesby family home), Worcester Cathedral (the Sheriff of Worcester unveiled the plotters), Alnwick Castle (family home of conspirator Thomas Percy) and York Minster, where Guy Fawkes' father's grave still lies. A final concert will take place in London on 5 November and the music has been recorded for release on the Signum label later this year.

Gary Cooper as Guest Director

For the Mozart year in 2006, Concordia is offering some new programmes under the directorship of Gary Cooper, its long-standing keyboard player. A programme based on Mozart's early violin sonatas, written when he visited London in 1764, meeting JC Bach and the gamba player Friedrich Abel, has a variant with flute; other ideas include readings from contemporary diaries by Samual Pepys and Charles Burney alongside music of the period.

The Elizabethans at the Wigmore

Following the success of their Lawes series, Concordia was invited back to the Wigmore Hall for two concerts inspired by the 400th anniversary of the death of Elizabeth I. The first programme, with Emma Kirkby, featured the delicious sounds of voice, viol, lute, flute, cittern and bandora in an evening of Dowland, Morley and others, while in the second Concordia's viol consort was joined by the wonderful voices of the Cardinall's Musick for music by Byrd, Tallis and Tye.

TV and theatre stars appear with Concordia

Actress Penelope Keith (better known to most of us from her hit TV series ‘The Good Life’ and ‘To the Manor Born’) played the ageing Queen Elizabeth I in an exciting new show developed by Concordia and writer Susannah Waters premiered at the Covent Garden Festival. For further performances in 2003, the 400th anniversary of Elizabeth's death, Concordia was joined by Susannah York (Truro, Brighton Festival) and Janet Suzman (Lichfield and King's Lynn Festivals).

Early Music Network Tour

Concordia's CD for Metronome entitled Titian: Venice and the Music of Love, of large-scale Venetian music by Gabrieli, Willaert, et al, was recorded to complement the National Gallery's spectacular exhibition of paintings by Titian in 2003. Concordia presented this programme in a special concert at the National Gallery and BBC Music Magazine also featured the music on its cover CD - see the interview with Mark Levy which appeared in the magazine. Concordia subsequently won awards from Arts Council England and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to tour Ecco Venezia Bella on the Early Music Network that autumn, visiting six venues around the country from Tonbridge to Lancaster.

Lawes at Wigmore Hall and on TV

Concordia appeared in two concerts in the Wigmore Hall's 400th anniversary series for the fascinating English composer William Lawes (1602-1645) which was devised and directed by Mark Levy. The series met with universal acclaim in the national press: ‘seductive celebration of an unsung hero’ Telegraph; ‘a terrific display of what makes this consort special’ The Times [ read more ]; ‘an exceptionally cogent concert’ Independent [ read more ].

Concordia's CD entitled Knock'd on the Head of music by Lawes is available from Metronome and the group recorded a Lawes concert for BBC4 Television[ broadcast details ].  Mark Levy's feature about Lawes appeared in the May 2002 issue of BBC Music Magazine.