Author: Barbara Dunn

Barbara trained as a teacher and worked for most of her career in Primary Education, eventually serving as a headteacher in Reading and then in Worcester, before taking early retirement. She has been involved with Worcestershire Early Music from its beginning, delivering workshops and organising concerts and the Pride and Prejudice Ball. Barbara is an enthusiastic amateur musician, playing regularly in many different formal and informal gatherings. She performs with the Gloucester Waits on flutes and recorders

Students from Birmingham Conservatoire lunchtime concert

On Friday 14th June the students from the Early Music department presented a programme of Early Music in Saint Martins in the Cornmarket. This was our third collaboration with the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire students who played a variety of instruments and pieces to an appreciative audience. We heard music for a Jacobean Masque played on a consort of recorders, a Pepusch Concerto played on Baroque flutes, recorders and Baroque bassoon and a trio sonata by Vivaldi played on recorder, bassoon and organ.

The audience included a class of children from a nearby primary school who enjoyed front row seats and were happy to be invited to talk to the artists after the concert.

Early Music Festival 2019

Thanks to everyone involved our festival this year was a great success. We attracted visitors from Spain, Dublin, Aberystwyth, Peterborough, Cheltenham and of course many from nearer to home. Our return to the Guildhall for the two evening concerts was well received and our new venture, the family concert proved popular.

The Musical and Amicables gave a glittering performance of Baroque trio sonatas (you can hear a clip on the Worcester Arts Council website). Fontanella recorder consort gave us a rich variety of music spanning from the fifteenth to 21st century, and the Emily Askew Band proved to be a fitting finale to our festival with their medieval music presented in a folk tradition.

Baroquathon 2019

Our third Baroquathon took place on Monday 6th May and was another roaring success with some 40 participants; there were 12 ensembles, 6 solos, 6 duos, as well as group singing and recorder playing.

A variety of compositions from before 1850 were performed on viols, sackbut, recorders, flutes, French horn, oboe, saxophone, bassoon, violin, viola, accordion, concertina, guitar and wind synthesiser.

We collected over £200 which will be shared between the Elgar School and Worcestershire Early Music to help fund outreach projects offered by both organisations.

Worcestershire Early Music is grateful to the Elgar School of Music for its support, and we look forward to future collaborations, including Baroquathon 4 in 2020.

We are grateful to Sponsors

Thank you to: The Elmley Foundation, Worcester Arts Council, Border Marches Early Music Forum, and the Music Reprieval Trust for their support for our 2019 festival and outreach work . Without the help of these organisations we would be much more limited in our choices of artists.