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ROUND ELEVEN GRANT APPLICATIONS
Sirinu
ENSEMBLE INFO
Ensemble Contact:
Matthew Spring
Email:
Ensemble Connect URL
Year of formation:
1992
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Sirinu’s ‘Knights, Knaves, and Amorous Escapades’ project brings a fabulous range of unfamiliar medieval genres to new audiences, in venues which are either entirely unfamiliar to early music or have had little contact with it. Referencing popular mythical characters we aim to make our programme of little known medieval music accessible to new audiences. The programme explores music before 1400 that was composed and performed for elites, juxtaposed with pieces intended for competitive performance and targeted at a populist audience. A grant would give opportunities to young musicians Kira Thomas and Lewis Spring alongside seasoned performers. Music before 1400 is seldom heard in UK concerts and few groups engage with this repertoire. This project would allow Sirinu to plug this gap, and develop innovative performance approaches to this repertoire in the context of a series of eight concerts, some of which would be in churches that date from before 1400. We intend that this would lead a recording in near future.
Our concert explores music before 1400 that celebrated such legendary characters as Robin, Marion, Tristan and Arthur, though a range of musical forms including monophonic songs, pastourelles, instrumental pieces, motets and ballades. Much of this music was performed by the composers themselves, often in a public and competitive performance arena to a critical and discerning audience who would have been fully conversant with the mythic characters and their deeds. Some of the legendary characters were high born, as were the composers, but others were rustics or ruffians. We bring this rollicking interplay between the social classes and between the sexes to life in this panoply of medieval society.
Venues, dates and audiences:
1. 2 May, Saturday 7.30 pm – United Reform Church, High Street, Glastonbury, BA6 9DZ (c.60- local audience unfamiliar with early music)
2. 16 May, Saturday 7.30 pm – St Michael’s, High Street, Lewes, BN7 1XU (c.60-local audience unfamiliar with early music
3. 3 June, Wednesday, 7.00 pm - St Kenelm’s, Minster Lovell, OX29 0RR (c.50-local audience new to early music)
4. 13 September, Sunday, 5.30 pm – St Andrew’s, Thornhill Square, Islington, N1 1BQ (c.75-local and London audience)
5. 19 September, Saturday, 7.30 pm – St Brevita’s, Lanlivery, PL3 5BT (c.100-Cornish audience)
6. 25 September, Friday 7.30 pm – St Giles, Church Lane, Bletchingdon, OX5 3DL (c.50-local and Oxford audience)
7. 2 October, Friday, 7.30 pm – St Michael’s Parish Church, Church Square, Melbourne DE73 (c.75-local audience)
8. 9 October, Friday, 1 pm – St John’s Arts Centre, St John’s Walk, Old Harlow, CM17 0AJ2 (c.60 regular audience)
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
PROJECT COSTS
Number of performers:
Instrumentalists:
Vocalists:
Other:
3
2
Project Income (£):
Ticketing/Fees:
Public Funding:
Other trusts/foundations - confirmed
Other trusts/foundations - pending
Other
Income - Total sources
2250
0
500
400
3150
Project Expenses (£):
Artists' fees
Artists' travel/accommodation
Venue - Rehearsal/Concert:
Recording/Filming:
Marketing/Publicity:
Management/Contingency:
5000
490
92
0
120
0
Total Project Costs:
5702
Amount (£) of Grant Requested:
2552
Detailed Budget (Download):
IMPACT OF GRANT
The grant would enable us to perform in venues new to early music (Glastonbury, Melbourne, Lewes, Minster Lovell) and to consolidate audiences we previously had success with. It would allow us to explore earlier seldom-performed Minnelieder German songs, far from the fifteenth and sixteenth century repertoire we know. It would enable us to explore ways of performing, in particular by using instruments to improvise around voices and by interspersing English translations into longer texts.
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