Hello from us all at The Gesualdo Six! As we await the start of Advent and our festive concert series, it feels like a good opportunity to talk about a few of the wonderful projects that we enjoyed this autumn before we look ahead to a few of the exciting things that are coming up towards the end of this year!

It so happened that autumn would take us to all the constituent parts of the UK, starting with St. Asaph in North Wales. The cathedral there is stunning and proved to be a perfect acoustic for our Mother Earth programme. We enjoyed a delicious cream tea in the sun overlooking the graveyard, which includes the last resting place of organist and composer William Matthias, who’s music all the members of the group have performed in other guises.

We had a wonderful time in early October working with the fantastic trumpeter Matilda Lloyd. These type of collaborations are a really wonderful way to refresh ourselves musically: allowing us both to explore new repertoire and to learn from and grow with fellow musicians. So it proved working with Matilda, and with her it was a delight to revisit some past venues in Wells and Clifton in Bristol. On our way back to London we performed at Hurstbourne Tarrant, at the kind invitation of some of our patrons.

We revisited a further three venues in the middle of this October: St Mary’s, Warwick with Leamington Early Music performing Music of the Heavenly Spheres, some English Motets at the Little Missenden Festival (followed by some karaoke!) and Passion and Polyphony at North Luffenham (after some cricket nets).

A few days later including rehearsals and preparation in London, we boarded a long train to St. Andrews to continue our tour of UK nations. The rail journey was stunning, especially along the Firth of Forth. We were very excited to work with the choir of St. Salvator’s Chapel and their director Claire Innes-Hopkins in a joint evensong as part of the St. Andrew’s Voices Festival. More collaboration here in Scotland too, as we performed live alongside light shows by LuxMuralis.

We were particularly pleased to run two workshops over a very busy few days! It was brilliant to work alongside two very talented young Scottish consorts: Cantus Firmus and a group formed from St. Salvator’s choir. We also ran a come-and-sing on Haydn’s Creation giving us a chance not only to meet lots of keen local singers but also to perform a few short solos from this great work!

In between singing we managed to play a little cricket on a windy Scottish beach, much to the bemusement of locals, tourists and golfers! Our last engagement in Scotland was a lovely chance to sing Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices to a packed St. Salvator’s Chapel as part of the Festival Eucharist.

Our final stop on our mini-tour of the UK was the Derry International Choir Festival, a first visit to the Emerald Isle for some of the group! It was a real pleasure to learn a little about the history of the beautiful maiden city and wonderful to meet so many international musicians at our concert there.

Looking ahead to Advent, we were very excited to release our second CD Christmas in early November, and recorded some videos with the wonderful David Hinitt to go alongside the CD, which will become available through advent.

Returning to the Belgian town of Verviers for a second time on the Eurostar, we were excited to present a small amuse-bouche of advent works at the end of our Passion and Polyphony programme. After travelling from Verviers to St. Pancras we headed to Muswell Hill and Owain’s kitchen for a planning meeting, in which we conceived this little round-up. So there you are! You’re up to date!

Keep tuned for Part II of our November Update, which will look forward to some of the coming events and projects that we’ve been busy planning!