In video: Paul McCreesh/Gabrieli Consort & Players

We recently sat down with director of Gabrieli Consort & Players, Paul McCreesh, to chat about their upcoming Associate Artist series in this Summer Festival as well as the ensemble’s relationship to Spitalfields Music.

Click play to find out more about their three Christ Church Spitalfields programmes which encompass the range of Gabrieli Consort & Players’ work, from early English opera to twentieth century unaccompanied choral music. Oh, and not to forget their foray into making music for the toddling audience.

In pictures: the award-nominated ‘We are Shadows’

As many of you may have heard, we’ve been fortunate enough to be shortlisted twice(!) for this year’s RPS Music Awards.

In the RPS Music Award for Learning & Participation category is last Summer’s fantastic We are Shadows - our opera project that was two years in the making and involved over 300 participants of all ages from Tower Hamlets.

It’s got us reminiscing about the project and so we thought we’d take the opportunity to share a selection of images captured from along the way. We hope you enjoy!

Composer John Barber and librettist Hazel Gould

Workshopping with The Sixteen at Village Underground

Rehearsal at Barbican Centre

Director Mia Theil Have in rehearsals a Barbican Centre

The City Chorus in rehearsal at Barbican Centre

Robert Anthony Gardiner as Toby

The City Chorus

Toby, his Shadow, Rattus Rattus and the Shadow Voice

Rattus Rattus and some of the young rats

Shoreditch Church dressed for We are Shadows

If you fancy a little bit more, have a look at the We are Shadows videos on our YouTube channel. There’s a great documentary from Andy Weir, and you can enjoy a short film below:

Images by Jez C Self.

In conversation with Matthew Barley

Matthew Barley, cellist and one of this year’s Associate Artists was kind enough to invite us over for tea and to tell us more about his series in the upcoming Summer Festival. Including some of the Festival’s more unconventional events (such as playing chamber music without any rehearsal to showcase the dynamism of initial music-making), as well as a performance of John Tavener’s The Protecting Veil, they are some the most unmissable this June.

Check out the video below to hear more from the man himself!

Don’t forget to book you tickets now (especially for Amongst Friends as the price will increase each time an artist is announced!).

Lights, Camera, Action on the Midsummer Street Party

Our newest team-member and Development Administrator, Phil Chandler talks about his first few weeks at Spitalfields Music and being thrown in at the deep-end of cinematography!

Our Development Administrator, Phil

As the newest recruit to the Spitalfields Music team, I had envisaged my first few weeks being full of inductions, lots of reading and hunting out the best coffee shops. Little did I know that I was soon to be thrust into the world of online fundraising and amateur film-making, charged with the task of creating a video for our Midsummer Street Party fundraising campaign. Alongside our Development Manager Camille, and armed with little more filming experience than some shaky footage of a teenage Spanish holiday, we headed out into various Spitalfields locations to conduct some interviews with the Street Party organisers and participants.

After a few hours of fumbling with tripods and voice recorders, we reviewed our footage and created a short clip with the help of our in-house editing wizards. With our video deemed fit for public consumption, we put together the rest of our fundraising campaign and it was ready to go: our fundraising hit the web!

The project made for an exciting first month at Spitalfields Music, and donations for the Midsummer Street Party have been rolling in via the campaign’s Just Giving page. The party will capture the magic of Spitalfields and the diversity of its residents, and combine the fantastic work of both our Festival and Learning & Participation teams. Learn more about the day from the finished product of our first foray into filmmaking – and don’t forget to donate!

Check out Phil’s handiwork below!

Donations can be made online via www.justgiving.com/midsummer

Find out more about the Midsummer Street Party on the website.

In video: Melvyn Tan

Melvyn Tan returns to Spitalfields this Summer for a programme brimming with Bach and brilliance. Alongside two of JS Bach‘s English Suites (Nos. 2 and 5) he will be giving the world premiere of works by 11 acclaimed British composers in Variations for Judith.

The variations are a series of short reflections on Bist du bei mir by GH Stölzel, arranged by JS Bach, and were written for Spitalfields Music’s former Executive Director, Judith Serota. They include contributions from composers Peter Maxwell Davies, Thea Musgrave, and Jonathan Dove and Judith Weir whose variations you can hear along with the theme in the video below.

Don’t miss Melvyn Tan on Monday 18 June at 9.00pm in Shoreditch Church (St Leonard’s). Book online now.