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 Lachrimae Consort on flute and recorder

Outreach at the Commandery Museum

On European Early Music Day (21st March) the Waites of Gloucester played in the beautiful great hall, to museum visitors. A collection of bagpipes, shawms, recorders, crumhorns, hurdy gurdy and flutes were played in various combinations. The music was chosen from sources with a Dutch connection and included works by Clemens non Papa and Susato.

On Make Music Day (June 21st) Merrie Noyse played to the museum visitors, again in the great hall. An array of instruments were introduced and played, and the audience were invited to sing in the chorus of one of their songs. An opportunity to have a try on the instruments was offered and the audience members engaged in playing and talking to the musicians at the end of the performance.

Family Concert

New to our festival this year was a family concert given by Fontanella Recorder Consort and sponsored by Border Marches Early Music Forum.

The programme was entitled “If you go down to the woods” and included pieces inspired by the natural world..there were frogs and nightingales, cuckoos and of course a teddy bear or two.

The children were able to get up close and personal to the recorders and were offered crayons and paper to illustrate some of the pieces to ensure the young people’s continued involvement. All in all it was a delightful event much enjoyed by the young and not so young!

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.