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ENSEMBLE INFO

Ensemble Contact:

Email:

dukesconsort@gmail.com

2025

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

We would like to perform a concert of Grands Motets by Jean-Baptiste Lully, reconstructing the performing forces which Lully had at Versailles. This also includes the opportunity to give the UK premiere of a remarkable and little performed work, the Grand Motet, O Lachrymae. Over the past four years, I have staged several performances of similar repertoire in Oxford and most recently at the Royal Academy of Music, and assembling the musicians needed to perform these works is made feasible by the love for this repertoire which my fellow students and I share. A Continuo Foundation grant would make a project of this scale financially viable, and enable us to perform this music for a large audience in London before many of us finish our studies and (in some cases) leave the UK.
Performing French sacred music with large numbers is a rare event in the UK, and this would be the first such performance of this scale in the UK this side of the last millenium. All of the performers have been immersed in the French style over the past year through two student-led concert projects and the Resounding Shores programmes at RAM. This will allow us to put into practice elements of the French style which we have experimented with; playing with French bow grip (thumb under); at A = 392 Hz; in a suitable late 17th century temperament; with French Latin, and with extensive engagement with appropriate ornamentation and style driven by primary source materials.
This programme will bring together over fifty musicians, most of whom are students and recent graduates, and who are keen to create more opportunities to share this repertoire with the public. Grant funding will help us cover the hire of a suitable venue, allow us to film the performance, and create an audio-visual archive of interviews and short to medium form content about the music and the process to ensure that this performance has an afterlife which will help engender future performances of similar, currently rarely-heard repertoire.

Public performances
'A French Baroque Journey' - The Duke's Hall, Royal Academy of Music, 10th October 2025
'English Coronation Anthems' - St Marylebone Parish Church, 27th September 2025
'Brandenburg Concertos' - St Marylebone Parish Church, June 7th 2025
Service of Vespers with German 17th and 18th century liturgical repertoire and Bach Christ Lag in Todes Banden - Exeter College Oxford, May 18th 2025

We formed The Duke's Consort to draw together players and singers who had already been working together for some time, often without a name, and with a desire to really focus on performing late 17th and early 18th century repertoire in a rhetorically driven fashion, and exploring in greater detail issues of pitch and temprament. We also wanted to create concert programmes that might draw in more narrative elements, and our recent Charpentier programme in the Duke's Hall followed a liturgical narrative to contextualise the repertoire. The director comes to the group having formerly been studio director of New Chamber Opera, in Oxford, and having directed vocal and instrument forces had found a real love for French and English Baroque repertoire. The ensemble draws together musicians from around the globe who have met in London (co-leaders Verena Eggensberger and Ela Kodzas hailing from Munich and Rochester NY respectively), as well as many current and recent students, both from Oxbridge and London conservatoires.

This year we continue to explore French repertoire with Lully in a concert at the RAM in late April, and with a greater weighting on English repertory in the 2026-2027 season. Central to our vision is the creation of high quality audio visual content when possible, as well as an expansive social media profile centred around interviews and short to medium form content. In October, looking to establish a social media presence, Emma Warren joined us to run our social media accounts, and we will be professionally filming an upcoming performance of Couperin's Leçons de Tenebres. We are also exploring a an opera run in Summer 2027 which would be spread across the Waterperry Opera and St Marylebone Festivals, and a tour of our Charpentier Programme in January 2027.

Below is a time stamped link to the Credo (c. 10 minutes) from our Charpentier performance at the Royal Academy of Music.

https://youtu.be/ltNRX0xb0kE?si=PpQQGqyMe46pgUUL&t=3363