Salt Spring Baroque is excited to welcome, from the UK, viol consort Fretwork with internationally acclaimed countertenor Iestyn Davies.
Wednesday, November 27, 7:00 pm
ArtSpring
100 Jackson Avenue, Salt Spring Island
Tickets are available at the ArtSpring Box Office, link below.
They will perform a program entitled "LAMENTO". In the 17th century, the violin was almost as slow to arrive and dominate the musical landscape in Germany as it was in England. So the sweet sound of the viol family was the instrumental texture of musical life, both in the home, the court and church. The programme features music from three Saxon friends with similar-sounding names, who came from the same neck of the woods: Schein, Scheidt & Schütz; to the great Buxtehude, in the north, nearly in Denmark. J.S.Bach famously walked from Saxony to Lübeck to hear Buxtehude play, but Bach's uncle, Johann Christoph, was one of the most cherished of his ancestors, and gives us the piece that entitles the programme.
PERFORMER BIOS
FRETWORK
"Fretwork is the finest viol consort on the planet"
— Stephen Pettitt, The London Evening Standard
In 2026, Fretwork celebrates its 40th anniversary. In these last decades, they have explored the core repertory of great English consort music from Taverner to Purcell, made classic recordings against which others are judged, and commissioned an entirely new repertory of music for viols.
Their series of discs for Virgin Classics included CDs devoted to William Lawes, Henry Purcell, William Byrd, Matthew Locke, John Dowland and Orlando Gibbons; while their more recent work for Harmonia Mundi USA has produced three discs of J.S.Bach — The Art of Fugue, Alio Modo and The Goldberg Variations — which have been exuberantly praised; and discs of the earliest instrumental music (Petrucci); Sir John Tavener's The Hidden Face; Thomas Tomkins; Alexander Agricola & Fabrice Fitch; Ludwig Senfl with Charles Daniels and two collaborations with the choir of Magdalen College, Oxford. Their recording of concert songs by William Byrd with Emma Kirkby has received particular praise.
They have expanded their repertory to include music from over 500 years, from the first printed consort music in Venice in 1501 to music written this year. And, in between, everything that can be played on a consort of viols – Byrd & Schubert, Purcell & Shostakovitch, Gibbons & Britten, Dowland & Grieg. list of composers they have encouraged to create new works is like the role call of the most prominent writers of our time: George Benjamin, Michael Nyman, Sir John Tavener, Gavin Bryars, Elvis Costello, Alexander Goehr, John Woolrich, Orlando Gough, Sally Beamish, Tan Dun, Barry Guy, Thea Musgrave, John Paul Jones, Nico Muhly, Sir James MacMillan and many others.
Recently they have performed in the Lammermuir Festival, in Wigmore Hall with Tenebrae, and in the Malling Festival. They also have visited North America including concerts at Carnegie Hall with Iestyn Davies. In 2025 they commemorate the sudden and untimely death of Orlando Gibbons, and celebrate the 90th year of Arvo Pärt with concerts and recordings.
The future sees many exciting projects based on the thrilling juxtaposition of old and new; making the experience of old music new and bringing the sensibilities of past ages to bear on contemporary music.
Listen to Fretwork here. For more information on Fretwork, check our their extremely informative webpage https://www.fretwork.co.uk/
IESTYN DAVIES
Iestyn Davies is a British countertenor widely recognised as one of the world's finest singers celebrated for the beauty and technical dexterity of his voice and intelligent musicianship. Critical recognition of Iestyn's work can be seen in two Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, a RPS Award for Young Singer of the Year, the Critics' Circle Award and recently an Olivier Award Nomination. He was appointed MBE in the Queen's New Year's Honours List 2017 for services to music.
His operatic engagements have included Ottone (L'incoronazione di Poppea/Monteverdi) for Zürich Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Arsace (Partenope/Handel) for New York City Opera; Oberon (A Midsummer Night's Dream/Britten) for Houston Grand Opera, English National Opera and The Metropolitan Opera, New York; Apollo (Death in Venice/Britten) for English National Opera and in his house debut at La Scala, Milan; Hamor (Jephtha/Handel) for Welsh National Opera and Opera National de Bordeaux; Steffani's Niobe at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; his debut at The Metropolitan Opera Unulfo (Rodelinda/Handel) where he has also appeared as Trinculo The Tempest; the Lyric Opera of Chicago in Rinaldo; Bertarido Rodelinda for English National Opera; his debuts at the Opéra Comique and the Munich and Vienna Festivals in George Benjamin's Written on Skin and the title role Rinaldo for Glyndebourne Festival Opera. He returned to Glyndebourne in 2015 for David in Handel's Saul.
His concert engagements have included performances at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan with Dudamel, the Concertgebouw and Tonhalle with Koopman and at the Barbican, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Lincoln Centre and at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall with orchestras that include the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Britten Sinfonia, Concerto Köln, Concerto Copenhagen, Ensemble Matheus, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He recently made his debut, in recital, at Carnegie Hall, New York. He enjoys a successful relationship with the Wigmore Hall, where, in the 2012/13 season, he curated his own residency.
Recent highlights have included two Bach recitals at the Edinburgh International Festival, Britten's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at the Aldeburgh Festival and Schubert's 'Die Schöne Müllerin' with Julius Drake at Middle Temple Hall, London. Future plans nclude Thomas Adès's "The Exterminating Angel' at the Metropolitan Opera New York and Farinelli & the King with Mark Rylance on Broadway, New York.
His recordings include two versions of Handel's Messiah (New College Oxford, AAM/Naxos) and (Polyphony, Britten Sinfonia/Hyperion), Handel's Chandos Anthems on Hyperion, Handel's Flavio for Chandos with The Early Opera Company and Christian Curnyn, Bach's Easter Oratorio with Retrospect Ensemble, his debut solo recording Live at the Wigmore Hall with his own Ensemble Guadagni, a disc of Porpora Cantatas with Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo, an award winning disc of works for Guadagni for Hyperion and a disc of Handel arias with The King's Consort for Vivat. 2014/5 saw the release of The Art of Melancholy, a recital of Dowland songs for Hyperion, Flow my tears, songs for lute, viol and voice on the Wigmore Live label and Arise my muse for which he received the Gramophone Recital Award. He has added recordings of Bach Cantatas with Arcangelo, Faure Songs with Malcolm Martineau andlooks forward to the release of Bach's Magnificat and B Minor Mass in the coming months both for Hyperion.
He is the recipient of the 2010 Royal Philharmonic Young Artist of the Year Award, the 2012 & 2014 Gramophone Recital Award, the 2013 Critics' Circle Awards for Exceptional Young Talent (Singer).
Listen to Iestyn perform the beautiful aria 'Ombra mai fu' from Handel's opera Serse (Xerxes):
Iestyn Davies
Fretwork
Richard Boothby, viol
Joanna Levine, viol
Emilia Benjamin, viol
Sam Stadlen, viol
Jonathan Rees, viol
Silas Wollston, organ and harpsichord