Musica Antica has brought varied Early Music programmes to Rotherhithe for six years now.
In that time it has grown to a permanent ensemble of five professional singers and continuo, with associated artists joining to perform its hallmark repertoire of 17th Century Venetian opera, as well as music of the late Middle Ages, Renaissance and early 18th Century.
Aiming to make Early Music accessible and exciting while programming some of the most rarely heard works of the Early Modern period, each concert forms a carefully-constructed drama, with tickets rarely costing more than £10, and editions of the music (often only available in manuscript form) made readily available for free.
Musica Antica has now scheduled its live concerts for the remainder of 2022, all at Holy Trinity Church, Rotherhithe.
11th June: Our Own Orpheus
Countertenor Tristram Cooke, lutenist Peter Martin and gambist Harry Buckoke present a century of English song, culminating in the work of Henry Purcell.
16th July: Ritratti (portraits)
Musica Antica presents a programme of songs and cantatas written by three of the most prolific female composers of the 17th Century: Barbara Strozzi, Antonia Bembo and Isabella Leonarda.
17th September: The Fall of Troy
Centred around Cavalli’s depiction of the fall of Troy in La Didone, Musica Antica weave the work of some of the most daring composers of the 16th and 17th Centuries into a drama celebrating the powerful and highly experimental musical language of the Renaissance and Early Baroque.
19th November: Triste Plaisir
Sopranos Angela Hicks, Kristiina Watt, and the band of Musica Antica present two centuries of French and Italian songs spanning the 15th, 16th and early 17th Centuries, with much of it performed as it would have been: self-accompanied on the harp and lutes.
17th December: Christmas in the New World II
Musica Antica returns to 16th and 17th Century Mexico, Bolivia and Peru with a programme of songs and dances by indigenous and Iberian composers, centred on Mexican composer Francisco López Capillas’ as-yet unrecorded Hexachord Mass.