The 2019 programme for Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) is all about change and changing times.
WITH its theme of Metamorphosis, the Festival will present twenty seven events across Brighton & Hove this autumn, exploring transformation in many intriguing ways.
Deborah Roberts, Artistic Director, says: “The idea of things undergoing transforming change has long fascinated the human race. Our 2019 Festival explores the 2,000-year-old stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as well as musical and social transformation over the centuries. We end the Festival with a re-creation of the medieval Feast of Fools, which reversed all the social hierarchy for a few days and allowed a ‘letting off of steam’ for people living under the control of a feudal system. Our own times are certainly troubled, with society at war with itself, the threat of runaway climate change, and a political system with which many are disillusioned. Our message is musical, and all about bringing people together positively. What better reminder that many of these themes have resonated throughout history?”
Headline events include the first public performance in modern times of Antoine Brumel’s complete Lamentations for Good Friday, recently discovered in a Florentine manuscript and performed by Musica Secreta; a day devoted to J S Bach – from his Musical Offering, through dynamic re-colouring on synthesizers in The Art of Moog, and ending with a ground bass meets jazz clubnight.
The culmination of the Festival is an immersive performance of The Feast of Fools, combining medieval music, street dance, community performers and children from Brighton & Hove schools.
The Festival has long been at the forefront of developing and mentoring young artists, and over half of this year’s events feature current or former members of the Festival’s BREMF Live! young artist scheme.
Bringing a new and often dramatic take on early music, alumnae of the scheme are making illustrious names for themselves on the early music scene. Standout shows of 2019 include Ceruleo’s Burying the Dead – a music theatre piece capturing London transformed by cataclysmic events, as seen through the eyes of Henry Purcell; and Fieri Consort’s play with music exploring the life of celebrated Venetian composer Barbara Strozzi, the 400th anniversary of whose birth falls this year.
Community events include a Highland Dance workshop and Ceilidh; and a wide range of family concerts for toddlers and older children from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Really Classical.
For full concert listing, click here:
Tickets will be on sale from early September at bremf.org.uk
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