HENRIK PERSSON and CAROLINE RITCHIE - viola da gamba.
Old Baptist Chapel, off Church Street, Tewkesbury GL20 5RZ
16:00 - 18:00
£20 (plus online booking fee)
Organiser: Old Chapel Court Concerts - Jill Davies / oldchapelcourt@btinternet.com 01684 850112
A programme of fantasias, dances, and divisions by Christopher Simpson, Matthew Locke, Tobias Hume, John Playford, and others, performed on two spectacular and historically important English viols.
This is a rare opportunity to hear two original viols by John Pitts (1675) and Edward Lewis (1703) played together live, exploring some of the repertoire that their original owners might have played. The concert also features the duo’s own arrangements of popular melodies and ground basses from the time.
Newe Vialles was launched in 2015 by co-directors Henrik Persson and Caroline Ritchie. The name reflects the “Newe vialles” brought to the English court by Henry VIII to replace the “old vialles” (rebecs or fiddles), thus beginning the long tradition of viol- playing in the British Isles. The group operates both as a viol consort and as a more diversified chamber music ensemble.
Recent projects include recordings of Buxtehude and Gibbons with the choir of Trinity Hall, Cambridge under Andrew Arthur, programmes of consort songs with Helen Charlston and Penelope Appleyard, and the establishment of the South West Viols Festival, an annual weekend of workshops, masterclasses and consort playing in Culmstock, Devon.
From 2019 to 2023, Newe Vialles was ensemble in residence at Saxon Shore Early Music (Kenardington, Kent), where they performed a series of programmes of Elizabethan and Jacobean music, specially curated for this concert series. Their interest in the rejuvenation of the viol consort tradition has resulted in two world premieres of music for viols by Jocelyn Campbell (2016) and Giles Swayne (2017).
Newe Vialles also has a longstanding collaboration with the Blackdowns Early Music Project in Devon where they give regular concerts.
Their debut ensemble CD, Old Viols, was released in 2024 with Barn Cottage Records.