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ENSEMBLE INFO

Ensemble Contact:

Email:

emkviolinist@gmail.com

2024

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Wessex Baroque Collective seeks funding for five concerts celebrating the continuing voices of women in Baroque music, placing historically overlooked composers alongside newly commissioned works. Performances will take place in rural and semi-rural venues—Shaftesbury Arts Centre, South Somerset Music Centre, and St Hubert’s Church, Wimborne—with the intention of securing two further venues in Wiltshire and Hampshire. The project brings high-quality professional period-instrument performance to culturally underserved areas where access to live early music is scarce.
The programme centres on music by Francesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, and Isabella Leonarda. By interweaving vocal and instrumental works, it reveals the stylistic breadth, expressive depth, and technical sophistication achieved by women composers working within—and often against—the constraints of their time, repertoire that remains under-represented in regional concert life.
The tour features new works written for the ensemble by Emma-Marie Kabanova and Yu Hng Ng. “Dead Frute”, setting a text by seventeenth-century poet Mary Carey, explores baby loss, grief, and fragile hope. Though sorrowful, Carey’s writing is resolutely hopeful, driven by the longing for a living child. Drawing on Baroque forms alongside contemporary harmonic language, the piece connects Carey’s suffering with women’s experiences across centuries; in doing so, Kabanova confronts her own experience of baby loss alongside the emotional complexity of subsequently giving birth to a living child, affirming music’s capacity to process trauma and support healing.
“Loom” by Yu Hng Ng (2024) weaves fragments from Royer’s La Zaïde before revealing the full theme, and was warmly received at its 2025 premiere by rural audiences new to contemporary music for period instruments.The programme also includes Kabanova’s Fantasy Passacaglia for solo violin, reframing Purcell through structures inspired by electronic dance music, and concludes with Elena Firsova’s The Rest is Silence, performed on baroque cello.
Wessex Baroque Collective unites musicians with strong regional and national profiles: Angela Hicks (soprano), Emma-Marie Kabanova (violin/composer), Christine Land (cello), Matthew Nisbet (lute/theorbo), and David Gostick (harpsichord). Angela and Emma-Marie first met through a Continuo-funded project. The ensemble works democratically, sharing repertoire ideas and performing with genuine camaraderie, communicated through informal spoken introductions that deepen audience engagement. One concert will be recorded.
The tour highlights the excellence of rural-based musicians often overlooked in favour of London performers, aligning closely with Continuo’s mission to support professional period musicians, address geographical inequality in access to early music, and deliver imaginative, diverse, and artistically rigorous programming to communities that rarely encounter it.

Founded in 2024 by harpsichordist David Gostick and violinist Emma-Marie Kabanova, Wessex Baroque Collective has quickly gained a reputation for artistic excellence and imaginative programming. Based in the South West, it is the region’s only professional early music ensemble, creating opportunities for local specialist musicians and bringing historically informed performance to regional audiences. Operating as a flexible collective, it collaborates with guest artists when needed and is well placed to undertake choral projects through Gostick’s work with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta Choir.
Recent performances:
13/04/24 Biber – Mysteries, St Hubert’s Church, Corfe Mullen
22/07/24 Music for Midsummer, St Hubert’s Church, Corfe Mullen
25/01/25 Handel’s 9 German Arias, Shaftesbury Arts Festival of Baroque (with Angela Hicks), Shaftesbury
22/02/25 Dido and Aeneas, Wimborne Minster, with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta Choir
02/05/25 Handel’s 9 German Arias, St Hubert’s Church, Corfe Mullen (with Angela Hicks)
14/06/25 Dancing Through History, St Hubert’s Church, Corfe Mullen
19/07/25 Echoes of Time, St Hubert’s Church, Corfe Mullen (with Angela Hicks)
17/12/25 Christmas Baroque, Shaftesbury Arts Centre
25/01/26 Sacred Femme, Shaftesbury Arts Festival of Baroque with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta Choir
David Gostick (harpsichord) is a freelance conductor, keyboardist, and musicologist who leads several choirs including the Bournemouth Sinfonietta Choir and has conducted major works with the Portsmouth Choral Union and Medici Choir. A seasoned continuo player with Brandenburg Baroque Soloists and Salisbury Baroque, he holds a PhD from the University of Southampton in 18th-century provincial music-making.
Emma-Marie Kabanova (violin) trained in baroque violin in Sweden and Venice after graduating from Goldsmiths. Former artistic director of Globus Music Baroque Ensemble and guest principal with the Moscow Baroque Soloists, she performs internationally as a soloist and ensemble musician; her community work in Russia earned a UK Points of Light award.
Christine Land (cello), born in Bremen, trained at leading German institutions and performs with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. She now specialises in both modern and baroque cello and works regularly with ensembles including the Linden Baroque Orchestra and Consort of 12.
Matthew Nisbet (theorbo) studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Manchester University, and Indiana University with Nigel North. He performs with leading UK period ensembles such as The King’s Consort, Ex Cathedra, The Dunedin Consort, and I Fagiolini, and is a member of the lute quartet Chordophony.
Angela Hicks (soprano) is an internationally recognised early music specialist who debuted at La Scala and has appeared at Wigmore Hall and the Berlin Philharmonie. She collaborates with The Monteverdi Choir and The King’s Consort and appeared in the film The Favourite.