Tickets: Adults £20.00 each. Under 25 years £15.00 (booking fee applies) Licensed bar. Doors open at 5.30pm
Red Priest – Truly Madly Baroque
Piers Adams – recorders Julia Bishop – violin Angela East – cello David Wright – harpsichord
The iconic baroque quartet Red Priest – described in the New York Times as “the wildly virtuosic little band” – perform a stunning programme of truly baroque classics, arranged and performed with Red Priest’s trademark energy, virtuosity and (in the best baroque sense) madness!
The programme includes:
BACH – Brandenburg Concerto no. 5; Toccata and Fugue
VIVALDI – Concerto for Four Violins; Flute Concerto ‘La Notte’
ALBINONI – Oboe Concerto Op9/2
HANDEL – Harmonious Blacksmith Variations
And works by TELEMANN, PURCELL, ORTIZ and others
“The wildly virtuosic little band” — New York Times
Red Priest is the only early music group in the world to have been compared in the press to the Rolling Stones, Jackson Pollock, the Marx Brothers, Spike Jones and the Cirque du Soleil. This extraordinary acoustic foursome has been described by music critics as ‘visionary and heretical’, ‘outrageous yet compulsive’, ‘wholly irreverent and highly enlightened’, ‘completely wild and deeply imaginative’, with a ‘red-hot wicked sense of humour’ and a ‘break-all-rules, rock-chamber concert approach to early music’…. read on
“For sheer technical wizardry, charismatic showmanship and expressive devilment, Red Priest is in a exhilarating class of its own.” — BBC Music Magazine
About Red Priest
– recently described in the New York Times as ‘the wildly virtuosic little band’ – has been at the cutting edge of baroque music performance for over a quarter of a century. Formed in 1997 by recorder virtuoso Piers Adams, together with violinist Julia Bishop, cellist Angela East and the late Julian Rhodes, harpsichord (a role now filled by David Wright) – and named after the original ‘red priest’ Antonio Vivaldi – the quartet has developed a truly unique style, combining high-energy performance, boundary crossing arrangements and theatrical presentation, delighting audiences across the globe.
Although based in the UK, where they are long established favourites amongst promoters and public alike, Red Priest has crossed the Atlantic for over 50 coast-to-coast tours of America, Mexico, Cuba and Canada, as well as performing in prestigious festivals in almost every European country, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Lebanon, Japan, China, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. The group has given numerous radio and TV broadcasts, including a fly-on-the-wall documentary for The South Bank Show in 2005, which attracted a million viewers.
Red Priest’s discography – released on their own label – includes an iconic take on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, hailed by Gramophone Magazine as one of the all-time best recordings of the work, alongside titles such as Handel in the Wind, Johann I’m Only Dancing, Pirates of the Baroque, Nightmare in Venice and Priest on the Run – all of which have received the highest critical acclaim. Their most recent release, The Baroque Bohemians, surprised the major labels by reaching No.1 in the UK classical charts.
2023 has been a year of revival and regeneration for Red Priest, as the group emerges from the ravages of the pandemic with a mostly home-based schedule, allowing audiences across the UK to experience once more their unique blend of musical magic and mayhem. New for the season is the formation of Red Priest Strings, an expanded ‘concerto’ version of the group with Piers Adams as soloist, which will be touring in the Autumn with help from the Continuo Foundation.
