CONTINUO ANNOUNCES NEW GRANT AWARDS
24 September 2026
£105,000 awarded to 28 Early Music projects across the UK
Grantees include 10 emerging groups, allocated 40% of total funding
Support for 68 concerts in 46 locations and five recording projects
Total £1.28 million raised and awarded since 2020
In its 12th round of grants, Continuo Foundation has awarded £105,000 to 28 UK period-instrument ensembles for projects ranging from a Bach Passion in Northern Ireland to performances of string quartets by a pioneering female composer to music from a manuscript linked to Anne Boleyn. The projects were selected from 57 applications.
Notably, 40% of this round's funding went to 10 emerging ensembles formed since 2020, 5 of them first-time Continuo grant recipients. Beyond performance opportunities, the awards will also fund recordings and video material that help young musicians build their professional presence and secure future work.
For one of these groups, the Ulster Consort, the award makes an ambitious undertaking possible: performing Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Belfast, where opportunities to hear this work are scarce and relatively few local period-instrument players are available.
The grant awarded to Northern Ireland-based Sestina Music will bring Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 to Belfast, combining early music specialists with its Next Generation Artists and, for the first time, local choristers from St George’s, St Polycarp’s and St Peter’s church choirs.
The Cambridge String Quartet turns to little-known composer Maddalena Lombardini, whose six quartets appeared in 1769, while the genre was still taking shape. At King’s College, Cambridge, a display of first-edition parts will accompany the music. The grant will help pay for professional filming, giving the performance a further life as material with which the quartet can introduce its work to promoters and audiences.
Fontanella Recorder Quartet's A Falcon Fallen follows Anne Boleyn’s turbulent life through music from the manuscript associated with her, held at the Royal College of Music. The quartet places this research alongside music by Hildegard von Bingen, Henry Purcell and contemporary composer Arvo Pärt, tracing changing ideas of fortune and fate.
The 28 projects illustrate the abundant variety and creativity in the UK Early Music scene. Further examples include Ardour Baroque’s world-premiere recording of trio sonatas by Antonio Luigi Baldassini, placing the little-known Roman composer alongside Corelli and Handel. Queen Victoria’s Consort and the West Gallery Music Association will be recreating English parish music from around 1840, using historical instruments including the serpent, keyed bugle and English bass horn.
Manchester Baroque will reconstruct a concert programme from 30 April 1745, including George Hayden’s rarely heard cantata Martillo. For the 2027 Beethoven bicentenary, the Prince Regent’s Band offers rare Swedish brass transcriptions and the UK premiere of a recently rediscovered brass arrangement of the First Symphony. FIGURE pairs Bach with new commissions from Jonathan Dove and Freya Waley-Cohen, and Musica Antica Rotherhithe traces the 17th-century guitar through repertoire from Europe and Latin America, touring to Durham and Sheffield.
Tina Vadaneaux, Founder and CEO of Continuo Foundation, comments:
‘The applications in this round have demonstrated once again the ever-increasing quality and creativity of professional Early Music ensembles working across the UK. Supporting ten emerging ensembles with 40% of this round’s funding is testament to the strength of the sector's talent pipeline and future growth potential.
‘We are deeply grateful to our donors and trustees, whose generosity and commitment make this work possible, and to our distinguished Advisory Panel for the expertise and care they bring to assessing every application. This grant support, and promotion through our Continuo Connect hub, helps ensembles build their careers and bring more of this extraordinary music within reach of audiences everywhere.’
The Round 12 awards will support 68 concerts in 46 locations. For details of all 28 grantees and their projects, click on the button below. To see where and when these concerts will take place, keep an eye on the Continuo Connect concert listings.
Congratulations to all our new grantees, and thank you to all
the generous donors who made these grant awards possible!
