Prize-winning early music ensemble The Duke’s Consort present music and readings exploring the turbulent Civil Wars that tore British society apart in the middle of the 17th Century.

By numbers the most destructive conflict on British soil of the last thousand years, the conflicts between the English Parliament and the monarchy, and between the Three Kingdoms of the British Isles, had a huge impact on the cultural life of those who lived through and after them. In this programme, we perform pieces by composers including William Lawes (a Royalist court musician killed at the Battle of Rowton Heath), Matthew Locke (a former Cathedral chorister who fled to the Low Countries at the outbreak of war), and Pelham Humfrey and Henry Purcell (the pre-eminent court musicians of the Restoration), alongside poems and letters written during the period.

The Duke’s Consort is a collective of young performers passionate about repertoire at the end of the 17th century. Formed from collaborations at the Royal Academy of Music and the University of Oxford, it works flexibly from intimate chamber performances to upcoming projects with some of the largest scale performances of its repertory in the UK.