Early music at festival

Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF) is expanding its presence at this year’s Brighton Festival.

You can catch it over five events at the Brighton Fringe between May 9 and 22.

Festival co-director Clare Norburn said: “We must be doing something right because in our main festival last autumn, our ticket sales grew by over 40 per cent - and in a recession too!”

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The festival’s other artistic director Deborah Roberts added: “We put on just two events in the May Fringe last year and both had really good audiences, so this year we just had to expand. It’s a great way for people to get a taste of BREMF and our special way of presenting music from the past in a way that contextualises it for modern audiences.

“With a range of music from the 12th to the 18th centuries and from highly-popular orchestral works such as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, via choral works by Monteverdi, intimate Elizabethan lute songs and newly-unearthed anonymous gems composed by 16th century nuns for their pagan rites to a haunting music drama built around the only surviving passionate love song by a female troubadour, BREMF at the Fringe represents some of the most original events happening in Brighton this May.”

The line-up is:

Monday May 9, St Bartholomew’s church, 7.30 pm, Monteverdi - Vespers from the Selva Morale. The ‘other’ Vespers. BREMF Consort of Voices, Deborah Roberts director.

Sunday May 15, St Andrew’s, Waterloo street, 7.30 pm, Unsung Heroine: troubadour Beatriz de Dia. The Telling, Clare Norburn director.

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Monday May 16, St Bartholomew’s church, 7.30 pm, The Secret Life of Nuns! Celestial Sirens, Deborah Roberts and Laurie Stras directors.

Saturday, May 21, St Andrew’s, Waterloo Street, 6 pm, Her Leaves Be Greene. Katharine Hawnt voice, Ziv Braha lute, Uri Smilansky viola da gamba.

Sunday, May 22, St George’s Church, 7.30pm, The Four Seasons. The International Baroque Players, Johannes Pramsohler leader.

Tickets all £12 (£10 conc) from www.bremf.org.uk

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