*Cecil Sharp House, London*
Those expecting Elizabethan music would have been surprised as this is was an evening of unexpected songs
Five years ago, the Shrewsbury Folk festival came up with an intriguing idea. Take eight folk musicians, shut them away for a week, and ask them to write a work that they then record perform live. The result was the highly entertaining Darwin Song Project, followed by the Cecil Sharp Project. Now, in a third such scheme, a new batch of eight performers had been asked to write songs about the Elizabethan age, this time commissioned by the English Folk Dance and Song Society and the Folk By the Oak festival at Hatfield House, the childhood home of Elizabeth I.
Those expecting Elizabethan music would have been surprised, despite the presence of multi-instrumentalist and early music specialist Emily Askew. This was an evening of unexpected songs in which Nancy Kerr set the mood: Shores of Hispaniola was an angry, brooding piece about the early slave trade that she wrote after the group had heard a talk from historian Ian Mortimer. There was further bleak commentary on the Elizabethan era from guitarist Martin Simpson, who provided two of the finest songs of the evening, dealing with the deaths of Christopher Marlowe and Mary Queen of Scots. Others were more cheerful. Bella Hardy, Radio 2's Folksinger of the Year, led the female musicians for an unaccompanied harmony vocal treatment of a John Donne poem, and later contributed an autobiographical song about her childhood memories of Hatfield House, while Jim Moray took an even more unexpected approach. Seated behind the keyboards, he sang a thoughtful ballad about Dr Dee – the Elizabethan scientist and mathematician who was the subject of a Damon Albarn opera – and then a lush ballad that could have come from a Hollywood musical.
For the encore, the cast mixed Elizabethan history with a melody worthy of a country weepie. I look forward to the album.
Rating: 4/5 Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.
Those expecting Elizabethan music would have been surprised as this is was an evening of unexpected songs
Five years ago, the Shrewsbury Folk festival came up with an intriguing idea. Take eight folk musicians, shut them away for a week, and ask them to write a work that they then record perform live. The result was the highly entertaining Darwin Song Project, followed by the Cecil Sharp Project. Now, in a third such scheme, a new batch of eight performers had been asked to write songs about the Elizabethan age, this time commissioned by the English Folk Dance and Song Society and the Folk By the Oak festival at Hatfield House, the childhood home of Elizabeth I.
Those expecting Elizabethan music would have been surprised, despite the presence of multi-instrumentalist and early music specialist Emily Askew. This was an evening of unexpected songs in which Nancy Kerr set the mood: Shores of Hispaniola was an angry, brooding piece about the early slave trade that she wrote after the group had heard a talk from historian Ian Mortimer. There was further bleak commentary on the Elizabethan era from guitarist Martin Simpson, who provided two of the finest songs of the evening, dealing with the deaths of Christopher Marlowe and Mary Queen of Scots. Others were more cheerful. Bella Hardy, Radio 2's Folksinger of the Year, led the female musicians for an unaccompanied harmony vocal treatment of a John Donne poem, and later contributed an autobiographical song about her childhood memories of Hatfield House, while Jim Moray took an even more unexpected approach. Seated behind the keyboards, he sang a thoughtful ballad about Dr Dee – the Elizabethan scientist and mathematician who was the subject of a Damon Albarn opera – and then a lush ballad that could have come from a Hollywood musical.
For the encore, the cast mixed Elizabethan history with a melody worthy of a country weepie. I look forward to the album.
Rating: 4/5 Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.