Preludes & Vollenteries 13

St James Garlickhythe

Garlick Hill, EC4V 2AL London, United Kingdom

Friday May 25^th 6-7pm

Peter Sheppard Skærved  Violins

Works by John Bannister, Nicola Matteis, Archangelo Corelli, Pedro Nogueira, Giovanni Bononcini
Plus: Nigel Clarke – ‘Where a scarlet flower will blossom’

Tickets £10 (£5 concessions) on the door. Pre-book from ptrshpprdskrvd@aol.com

Peter Sheppard Skærved continues his musical exploration of churches built and rebuilt before and after the Great Fire of 1666. These intimate salon-style concerts offer dialogues between the work of Wren, Gibbons, Hawksmoor, Hooke, and the violin-makers and composers whose work was heard in London at the time. St James Garlickhythe is sometimes called ‘Wren’s Lantern’, as the extraordinary high clerestory ceiling floods the building with light. Look out for the original wig-peg in the pulpit.

Preludes and Vollenteries has been drawing a dedicated audience since it quietly launched at St Stephen Walbrook last autumn. Each concert has a similar format: works from the 17^th and early 18^th Century are played in the great architecture and delicate acoustics of City Churches built and renovated after the Great Fire of 1666. The concerts are given on English and Italian instruments of the period, and, amongst other things explore the dialogues between the work of Wren, Hooke, Hawksmoor, Dance and Grinling Gibbons, the composers of the period, ranging from Marini to Matteis, and the great instruments made in St Pauls Churchyard  by Barak Norman, Richard Meares and Joseph Collingwood, or Cremona and Brescia by the Amati family, Stradivari and Maggini.

Each concert includes one ‘guest composer’ from the 21^st century, and features a work written for Peter, revisted in the extraordinary surroundings of what Christopher Wren called his ‘auditories’. Composers featured so far include Judith Bingham, Gregory Rose, Evis Sammoutis, Nigel Clarke, Defina Zeqiri, David Matthews and  Sadie Harrison.

For further details and tickets, contact Peter Sheppard Skærved  ptrshpprdskrvd@aol.com