Concert in King's Lynn: Queen of Heaven

Sunday 17 November, 7:30pm

Tickets £15 in advance (£17.50 on the door)

Cambridge Renaissance Voices return to the glorious acoustic of King’s Lynn Minster with a joyful programme of Renaissance polyphony written in celebration of the Virgin Mary as Queen of Heaven.  

It takes us on a journey through the music of the 16th and early 17th century, from the Franco-Flemish Josquin des Prez, who spent much of his career in Italy, to the Spanish masters Alonso Lobo and Francisco Guerrero, working together in Seville, and Tomas Luis de Victoria, who succeeded Palestrina as Maestro at the Pontifical Seminary in Rome, eventually returning to Spain for a royal appointment in Madrid.   

The tradition of Marian polyphony developing through these and many other composers of the European Renaissance ranges from gentle meditative settings of the Ave Maria and the prayer for compline Ave Regina Caelorum which culminates in the triumphal injuction ‘Gaude Virgo Gloriosa’, to full-blown polyphonic exuberance in the celebratory Easter antiphon, Regina Coeli Laetare: Queen of Heaven, Rejoice. 

Tunbridge Wells 19 May 2024: Music for Pentecost

Sunday 19 May, 7pm
Church of King Charles the Martyr, Tunbridge Wells, TN1 1YL

Booking information

The choir's visit to Tunbridge Wells falls on Whit Sunday, or Pentecost, so our programme features music to celebrate the season, including Tallis's densely woven motet for seven voices, 'Loquebantur', and Palestrina's 'Dum complerentur'. The settings of these texts reflect the excitement of the coming of the Holy Spirit to the apostles and their speaking in tongues, with multiple voices energetically vying for attention, punctuated by repeated alleluias. 

Concert 12 November 2023: German Sacred Music from Renaissance to Baroque

Cambridge Renaissance voices return to Suffolk, with our debut concert at the magnificent church at Lavenham, together with Kate Semmens (soprano), Paul Nicholson (organ) and Lynda Sayce (theorbo) for a programme of German sacred music from Praetorius to Bach and beyond. 

The towering figure of J S Bach has dominated the history of church music in Germany, but the roots of the Lutheran tradition on which he drew take us back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  We follow this line of influence, through the music of Praetorius, Heinrich Schütz and Johann Christoph Bach, culminating in the greatest of J S Bach’s choral motets, Jesu Meine Freude.

Woven through the programme are solos by soprano Kate Semmens from Anna Magdalena Bach’s notebook, a collection of favourite pieces compiled by J S Bach’s second wife, including Stölzel’s much-loved Bist du bei Mir. 

Tickets and booking information

Byrd and his contemporaries: concert at St Cross, 20th May

Splendour and devotion in Renaissance England
Church of St Cross, Winchester
Saturday 20th May 2023, 7:30pm

Ticket information

Cambridge Renaissance Voices return to the glorious acoustic of St Cross to celebrate the 400th anniversary of William Byrd, England's greatest composer of the late Renaissance.  Negotiating the religious divisions of his time, Byrd served the Protestant Elizabeth I while preserving his own faith as a Catholic.  It is in the Latin motets that he gave the most sublime expression to the spiritual anguish experienced by those who found themselves religious exiles in their own country, tempered by a serene beauty that suggests a form of consolation in their own devotion.  In this concert, Byrd's choral masterpieces are set in the context of sacred music by contemporary composers from Tudor and Stuart England. 

Concert in King's Lynn, 19 November 2022

Sacred music from Renaissance Spain and Portugal
King's Lynn Minster
Saturday 19 November, 7:30pm

This concert explores the beautiful repertoire of sacred choral music from the Golden Age of Spain and Portugal, representing one of the pinnacles of the European Renaissance.  The programme centres on music by Francisco Guerrero, maestro di capilla at the spectacular cathedral in Seville, and perhaps the greatest composer of the Spanish Renaissance, Tomas Luis de Victoria, who spent much of his career in Rome but returned to his native Spain as chaplain to the Empress Maria, daughter of Charles V, in Madrid.  

The flowering of sacred polyphony in neighbouring Portugal was equally magnificent, represented here in motets by Pedro de Cristo and Aires Fernandez, both of whom worked at the monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra.  By turns serene and dramatic, this rich repertoire combines an intense spirituality with a vivid range of emotional expression.  From the searingly beautiful strains of mourning in Lobo's 'Versa Est in Luctum' to the delicate madrigal-like patterns of Victoria's setting of 'Vidi Speciosam' from the Song of Songs, this programme showcases Iberian composers' ability to infuse religious music with sensuality, tenderness and passion. 

Purchase tickets here (discounted for advance booking)

Waltham Abbey 15 October

We're delighted to be returning to Waltham Abbey for a programme of Iberian music. Works by Guerrero, Victoria and others.

Saturday 15 October 2022
Lunchtime recital
12:30 - 1:15pm

Gorgeous music in a fabulous setting. It's what we like best!

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Jephthe at Wilton, 14 May 2022.

Cambridge Renaissance Voices return to the Italianate church in Wilton for a feast of Italian Renaissance and Baroque music.   

The programme features choral polyphony from Palestrina, Lotti’s searing Crucifixus, and works by Monteverdi, including extracts from the Vespers of 1610.  The centrepiece of this programme is a performance of Carissimi’s oratorio Jephte, with soprano Kate Semmens singing the part of Jephte’s daughter, and a continuo ensemble including lutenist Lynda Sayce on theorbo, and Joanna Levine of Fretwork on bass viol. 

Tickets available here.