York

York is one of our favourite stops on our Choral Pilgrimage, and we have just had an amazing two day residency there as part of the York Early Music Festival: a concert for primary school children, a BBC Radio 3 Discovering Music recording, a packed-out evening concert in the Minster, and an Insight Day, all based on the music of Sheppard, Byrd and Tallis we are featuring on this year's UK tour. The Insight day set the music in context through lectures and discussions led by Sally Dunkley and John Milsom. John explored the detective work undertaken by musicologists to try and unravel when and for where particular pieces were composed, when the evidence is thin and requires considerable lateral thinking to come to any meaningful conclusions: Thomas Morley was sung in the gardens of the National Early Music centre as part of his explication!

Off to Munich tomorrow for a concert of Victoria in Ingolstadt on Wednesday evening.