We have just had two great days playing the most wonderful music at Sophie’s Barn near Banbury. We spent the first day rehearsing Josquin in preparation for our concert on 14th August with Héloïse Bernard. And what a marvellous composer he is – each piece is a pleasure to play and listen to.

In the evening we worked on the website for our Josquin 500 Festival making sure that details are accurate and links are working correctly. We have made the website live and tickets can be bought for the concerts and events from 1st July.

The second day we worked on our programme for The Three Choirs Festival with James Gilchrist. The programme is called 16th Century Love Songs and the repertoire comes from the Fugger manuscript. It will feature instrumental music from our CD La La Hö Hö as well as sublime songs, sung in old German by James, mostly by Senfl.

To round off the sessions we played Richafort’s Missa pro defunctis – a requiem “in memoriam Josquin Desprez”. This glorious work is featured in our concert on 20th August in Leominster Priory with the Binchois Consort. What a way to finish the rehearsals and how exciting it is to have such a body of great music to perform this summer.

We must thank Cherry and Stephen Large very much for their kind hospitality and letting us rehearsal in the beautiful setting of Sophie’s Barn. We are looking forward to social distancing being a thing of the past and we can give another concert for their Sophie’s Silver Lining Fund.