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PROJECT DESCRIPTION

We are requesting a grant towards our new recording:
‘Sacred Monsters - Farinelli and Senesino’

We have already applied for this recording in the last round but are reapplying as we still urgently need support to make this recording happen in 2026 as our other reserves are contractually committed. We are hoping to tour this programme and have already been offered concerts in England and Ireland for our 2026 - 2027 season.

This new album contains music which has not been edited or recorded before, based around the two famous castrati of the eighteenth century, Farinelli and Senesino with singers Sharon Carty (mezzo-soprano) and Xavier Sebata (counter-tenor). This album for the first time focusses on the two castrati and their education, liaison, friendship and their performances from 1734 to 1736 when they were working together in London.
Our Artistic Director Bridget Cunningham is a Handel conductor, harpsichordist and scholar and is completing her PhD on Hasse’s operatic music and is an advisor for major auction houses. She has much experience directing music by Hasse, Porpora and the Neapolitan composers and continues to identify and research long-lost music which has not been recorded before. She is exploring vocal techniques and how different composers, wrote for these two castrati in this specific timeframe when they were both at very different stage of their careers. We are centering this project around the operas that Farinelli and Senesino performed in London together including Hasse’s Artaserse, Porpora’s Polifemo and Mitridate and build upon the research of our artistic director and scholars Donald Burrows, David Vickers, who will also advise on this project.
Bridget Cunningham has been awarded a research grant of £1000 from the Handel Institute to research Sacred Monsters and prepare new editions and scores. We have also already received benefit in kind and grants to pay for all production costs. We have received a grant towards our emerging artists scheme The Handelians for Sacred Monsters for the development of younger baroque musicians who will play with us on this new recording. We are applying to Continuo Foundation for £5,000 to help with artistic costs, filming, project management, venue and harpsichord hire.

This new album extends our development and grow concert opportunities as it covers new ground and reveals the social context into which these two phenomenal personae arrived into the London opera scene from Italy. As the themes and issues of Sacred Monsters relate to castration, place in society, gender issues, celebrity status as well as new musical discoveries, we will work with BBC and Oxford, Cambridge and Open Universities on this legacy project. We will donate copies of this world premiere album and new scores to the Coke Collection at the Foundling Museum for future research and general public.

We have no office costs, salaries or overheads and all money goes on artistic spend, valuing charitable status.