Brighton Early Music Festival - ‘BREMF@home – across the Earth’

For obvious reasons, there will sadly be no live concerts to attend in this year’s Brighton Early Music Festival. However, undeterred, BREMF are presenting a series of events online instead. Events will be premiered at a fixed date and time on YouTube and will remain online for a week. Although the events will be freely available, BREMF are requesting that viewers make a donation in place of buying concert tickets in the normal way via their website. This is crucial, as most of their regular funders have diverted funds to emergency aid during the COVID-19 crisis. 

Events run from Friday 23 October to Sunday 1 November. 

Spiritato!

Pocket Sinfonia will perform classics by Mendelssohn and Beethoven, adapted for chamber proportions, with animation and film of the natural world. Meanwhile, Spiritato! take the music of Heinrich Biber, and use puppets made from recycled materials to present Birds, Bugs and other Beasts – a Musical Menagerie. 

Piers Adams (credit: Emma Bailey)

A fifteenth-century barn and the pastoral Sussex landscape are the setting for Ensemble Augelletti’s Arcadian Wilderness, with music by Handel, Corelli, Geminiani and others, whilst James Duncan from Sussex Wildlife Trust is joined by Piers Adams on recorders for Bird Charmer, a talk with music on the song birds of Sussex. 

Joglaresa (credit: Andrew Mason)

Father and son Dirk and Adam Campbell play new and traditional music on a variety of instruments from Africa and Asia in Connections, while Joglaresa introduce us to medieval songs of protest in Rebellion!, including songs challenging corrupt leaders, religion and even sexual norms. Continuing the Sussex theme, Musicke in the Ayre will perform Sweet Ayres of Arcadia, set in the house and gardens of St Mary’s House, Bramber, in the Sussex Downs. 

Despite not being able to audition new ensembles for their prestigious BREMF Live! scheme this year, previous ensembles will be showcased with past and new footage of their musical activities. 

And as ever, the festival will end with a celebration – The Four Faces of Gaia. Four regions of the earth (Africa, India, the Middle East and Europe) and the four elements (Earth, Air, Fire and Water) combine in a celebration through traditional and early music and dance. 

For more information, dates and times, and details of how to donate, go to bremf.org.uk.