Join us for a unique opportunity to escape the hectic pace of modern life and immerse yourself in choral melodies and profound words that have resonated through centuries with The Cambridge Early Music Consort.
Whether you seek spiritual nourishment, a moment of quiet contemplation, or simply an escape from the daily grind, you are welcome to Choral Evening Prayer at Chelmsford Cathedral.
This year The Cambridge Early Music Consort have begun a new and exciting project at Chelmsford Cathedral. CEMC aim to discover and review the entire corpus of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s music within liturgical confines. This will be the first time this kind of project has been attempted, and is only possible through our continued collaborative efforts to create a bespoke service format at the cathedral. This format has quite simply liberated the music by allowing it to be placed “in loco”.
In conjunction with CEMC’s ongoing research into the life and music of Alfonso Ferrabosco (one of the largest influences on latter 16th C music in England…) we will now contextualise the music of Palestrina - who is known in England through a very narrow and filtered lens. Palestrina worked closely with Domenico Ferrabosco (father of Alfonso) at St. Peter’s in Rome in the early 1550’s, before then being dismissed by the Pope at exactly the same time as Ferrabosco in 1555. An education in Rome amongst these masters would have naturally fuelled the fire of the young Alfonso (b.1543) and played a critical part in the formation of his eventual musical language - which was to have such an impact on these shores. Therefore, it is crucial that we explore this sound-world and allow a true master of the 16th C to shine bright in the process.