Find our existing and planned programmes below, or request a new one!
We strive to live up to our name in our programmes: dynamic; likely to include winds, stars, mountains, or sailing; sometimes strange or disturbing . . . and always a journey.
(How does that relate to our name? You can find out on our Home page.)
Featured programmes
Scroll or jump further down for our full programme archive!
Under his Tongue doth Mischiefe sit
This performance was called ‘both funny and poignant’ by the art show curator who commissioned it. Using medieval and Renaissance texts, music, and images along with a sprinkle of our own writing, we have created a morality play about threat, dehumanisation, war, and the wish for compassion, wisdom, and peace.
Find out more about the texts and music we use on the detailed programme page!
Ars Moriendi
Ars moriendi is a European medieval and Renaissance concept of reflection on mortality and morality. It grew from the same roots as the popular Danse Macabre memento mori/vanitas tradition, which expresses our inevitable dance to the grave. We explore both concepts with polyphonic pieces, chants, and dance music with allegorical texts.
Programme page under construction!
More programmes
Seasonal Offerings - other themes below
~ details and number of performers may vary ~
Parlement of Foules
For this was on Saint Valentine’s day
When every fowl comes there his mate to take
Music from the times of King Henry VIII and William Shakespeare, suitable for February or any time of the year. The programme is loosely inspired by Valentine’s Day and more closely by Chaucer’s poem of the same title – a human account of the birds’ troubles in having to choose a mate on St Valentine’s Day, eventually resolved in a good-natured way. However, in our programme it’s the birds observing the humans and discovering a far less innocent picture. The birds contemplate humans’ springtime dalliances as they turn into love and betrayal, then stay with those who are wounded by love and keep them company in their time of despair, and even ease their passing. All the while, they welcome spring and go about their lives, even take sustenance from the aftermath of human tragedies – all still in a good-natured way.
See full programme and notes here.
Lamentations of Jeremiah / Caught in the Current
Suitable for Holy Week/Passiontide/Lent:
– We are available in a voice/viols combination to present a day’s Lamentation Lessons (20-30 minutes) during a service or a vigil, or in other format as requested.
– We can also build a concert of 45 minutes to an hour around Lamentations settings by composers such as Lassus, Palestrina, or Victoria.
– The concert option Caught in the Current has a water theme — tears, fountains, streams, rivers, the sea — and features Psalms 114 and 42. See below for details.
Holy Week dates
2026: 29th March-4th April
2027: 21st-27th March
2028: 9th-15th April
Caught in the Current
Water programme – sacred
Full concert listed here
See Other Themes for secular version
This water-themed programme is structured on Psalm 42.
Water is a metaphor for God as the source of all life but also of great destruction. Despite our best intentions, we are swept from the nourishing fountainhead to flail through the streams and rivers of accumulating hardships to the deep wrathful sea . . . and then beyond. This journey is reflected in the texts of our medieval and Renaissance chants and motets.
Ascending from Darkness
Suitable for Ascension. This voices and viols programme starts with a section called IN THE DEPTHS OF DARKNESS, including material from Holy Week, and moves through an assortment of sacred and secular works in sections called CROOKED PATHS and ASCENDING INTO LIGHT. Composers may include Saint Hildegard von Bingen, Palestrina, Lassus, di Rore, Ferrabosco I, Morley, Dowland, Campion, Charpentier, and more. In the version performed in June 2019, many of the pieces addressed the experiences or roles of women.
Ars Moriendi / Danse Macabre / Totentanz
Programme design in progress. Suitable for Lent, Halloween, the death of the old year, or whenever you like.
Other Themes
Vice and Virtue
or: ‘Under His Tongue Doth Mischiefe Sit’ – A Morality Play Gone Wrong
Originally designed for an art show; called ‘both funny and poignant’ by the show’s curator.
The art show for which this programme was initially designed was called Vice and Virtue. The show examined the idea that politics has developed elements of religion and that makes it difficult to discuss differing opinions without labelling each other simply ‘evil’ or ‘on the side of the angels’. Our programme is not about any specific political issues but is rather an expression of what seems to be a problem with most public discussions, namely lack of truly two-way communication.
This is not a topic that is directly depicted very much in the material we work with, which is music, texts, and images from four to ten centuries ago. Also, in those times the approach to ‘good’ and ‘bad’ was different in certain ways. So, to put our material into the context of this show, we have created a ‘morality play’ whose characters take on roles we all may have slipped into at different times, in different conflicts.
Despite the way the characters look, we don’t intend this programme to take a stance either for or against buttheads (literal or figurative), people of any systems of belief, or – as you will hear – swine.
England Be Glad: The Royal Courts
Pieces may be in sections on war, courtly pursuits, and more. They may include:
Lamento di Tristano/La rotta
Anon, (14th century)
Ja nuns
Richard I (1157 – 1199)
England be glad
Anon, Henry VIII Manuscript
(16th century)
A Souldiers Resolution
Tobias Hume (1569 – 1645)
Gaude Virgo Katherina (Henry V)
John Dunstable (c1390 – 1453)
Though some saith
Henry VIII (1491 – 1547)
Who will ascend to heav’n
Giaches de Vuert (1535 – 1596)
En frolyk weson
Jacobus Barbireau (1455 – 1491)
Pastime with good company
attr to Henry VIII (1491 – 1547)
From Love to Madness
Zephyro spira e il bel tempo rimena
Bartolomeo Tromboncino (c1470 – 1535)
There are other winds, which bring the joy and happiness of love,
except that for us it’s torment . . .
~~~
Con dolce brama
Magister Piero (c1300 – c1350)
The wind is good! Let’s sail into my lady’s harbour!
What needeth all this Travail
John Wilbye (1574 – 1638)
Love over riches.
Doulce Memoire
Antonio Gardane (1509 – 1569)
Love conquers all. While it lasts . . .
~~~
A la una yo nací
Turkish Sephardic (13th century)
I love you, but I’m leaving you to go to war!
Chanterai por mon corage
Guiot de Dijon (fl 1215 – 1225)
My beloved is away on a holy pilgrimage. God keep him safe from the Saracens!
Durch Barbarey Arabia
Oswald von Wolkenstein (c1376 – 1445)
Sometimes it’s being settled that drives one mad . . .
Doulce Memoire
Josquin Baston (c1515 – c1576)
Love over.
Nightingale/Adue sweete loue
Richard Sumarte (fl c1590-1630)/ Tobias Hume (c1569 – 1645)
And again.
La Vita Fugge
Alonso Mudarra (c1510 – 1580)
I lost my love, and now I’m lost . . .
~~~
Ne l’aria in questi di
Cipriano de Rore (1515/16 – 1565)
Fighting fate in a fortress of folly and futility.
La Folia
Diego Ortiz (c1510 – c1570)
Some more foolishness . . .
Who will ascend to heaven
Giaches de Vuert (1535 – 1596)
You wounded me. I think I’m going mad . . .
Lasse pour quoi refusai
Anon, Chanson de Femme (14th century)
I wounded you. I must have been mad!
~~~
Doulce Memoire
Pierre Sandrin (c 1490 – c1561), divisions by Diego Ortiz
From North to South
ALBION
Lamento di Tristano/La Rotta – Anon, (14th century)
Three Ravens – Thomas Ravenscroft (1582/92 – 1635)
Who will ascend to heav’n – Giaches de Vuert (1535 – 1596)
THE OLD CONTINENT
Ach weh des Leiden – Hans Leo Hassler (1564 – 1612)
Innsbruck, Ich muss dich lassen – Heinrich Isaac (c1450 – 1517)
Ne l’aria in questi di – Cipriano de Rore (1515/16 – 1565)
ITALIA
Con dolce brama – Magister Piero (c1300 – c1350)
Douce Memoire – Antonio Gardano (1509 – 1569)
Ancor che col partire – Cipriano de Rore (1515/16 – 1565) /Riccardo Rogniono (1550– 1620)
IBERIA
Cantiga de Santa Maria – Anon (13th century)
Una tarde de verano – Moroccan Sephardic (14th century)
La Vita Fugge – Alonso Mudarra (c1510 – 1580)
ALL OVER THE WORLD
Durch Barbarey Arabia – Oswald von Wolkenstein (c1376 – 1445)
From Fountains to Rivers to the Sea
Water programme – secular
Sample pieces
See Seasonal Offerings for sacred version
Prologue
My breast I’ll set upon a silver stream – John Ward (1571 – 1638)
First Part: A Fountaine of teares
O passi sparsi – Sebastiano Festa (c1490/95 – 1524)
Second Part: Along the river I swimme
Innsbruck, ich muß dich lassen (Heinrich Isaac, c1450 – 1517)
Reverci Venir Du Printemps – Claude Le Jeune (c1528/30 – 1600)
Third Part: Lost on Sea
Nel mezzo gia del mar – Niccolò da Perugia (fl c1350-1400)
Epilogue
Hor che’l ciel e la terra – Bartolomeo Tromboncino (c1470 – 1535)