Liverpool Early Music Festival 2022

The Liverpool Early Music Festival will be bringing Classical, early, world music and theatre shows at multiple venues across Liverpool with some exciting, pioneering & international artists.

The festival will take place between 17th-23rd September across venues such as Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Liverpool Parish Church, Nordic Church and Ullet Road Unitarian Church Hall.

Tickets are available to book for each individual event or book day/weekend tickets for a saving:

Saturday Ticket: £28 / £20 concs

Sunday Ticket: £20 / £16 concs

Weekend Ticket: £45 / £35 concs

Event Line-up

Saturday 17 September 2022

2.15pm – 3.15pm

Liverpool Parish Church, Old Churchyard, Chapel Street L2 8TZ

The Telling – Singing & Recorder Workshop

Learn to sing or play some beautiful Spanish medieval and Sephardic songs from the 5.45pm concert with Clare Norburn (singer) & Emily Baines (recorders) of The Telling. Beginners welcome – no experience necessary. Bring your own recorder if you have one. Plus, you’ll be invited to perform what you’ve learnt at the concert if you wish.

Tickets: £12 / £8 concession or free with ticket to 5.45pm concert (or included in Saturday / Weekend Savers Tickets)

5.45pm – 6.45pm

Liverpool Parish Church, Old Churchyard, Chapel Street L2 8TZ

The Telling – Music from the Spanish Melting Pot

A joyous hour of plaintive Sephardic and lively medieval music from The Telling’s fully staged show, Into the Melting Pot. The programme includes Alfonso el Sabio’s Cantigas de Santa Maria, Sephardic Jewish songs of love & longing, Adalusian/Arabic traditional songs, the earliest song cycle by Martin Codax (13 century) and Christian pilgrim songs from the Llibre Vermell (associated with the monastery of Montserrat).

Tickets: £15 / 12 concession (or included in Saturday / Weekend Savers Tickets)

8.45pm – 10pm

Nordic Church, 138 Park Lane, Liverpool L1 8HG

The Telling – The Telling Unchained

Join the Telling for an informal evening of music including a set of Irish harp music with Jean Kelly, music of singer-songwriters from the 12th to the 20th centuries, some requests and some jamming. If you play an instrument and fancy a jam, then bring it along! Anything could happen… and probably will!

Tickets: £8 / £5 concession (or included in Saturday / Weekend Savers Tickets)

Sunday 18 September 2022

1.30pm – 2.15pm

Ullet Road Unitarian Church Hall, 57 Ullet Road, Liverpool L17 2AA

FAMILY CONCERT: The Telling – Medieval & Traditional Lullabies from around Europe

The Telling’s soprano Clare Norburn and harpist Jean Kelly perform beautiful lullabies from the 13th and 14th centuries alongside traditional lullabies from Ireland, Scotland, Italy and Ukraine.

“I really enjoyed the music and I think the baby did as well!” audience member

Tickets: £5 per adult / Babies & Children Free (or included in Sunday / Weekend Savers Tickets)

8pm – 9.35pm

Ullet Road Unitarian Church Hall, 57 Ullet Road, Liverpool L17 2AA

The Telling – Unsung Heroine

Delve into the heady atmosphere of 12th century Provence, France to uncover the imagined life and love of ‘medieval Amy Winehouse’, Beatriz de Dia, soundtracked by plaintive music and poetry of the troubadours (French medieval poets) and medieval dances. Music and theatre collide in this fully staged show from The Telling with actor Anna Demetriou (Viking Destiny) and BAFTA-nominated director Nicholas Renton (BBC Mrs Gakell’s Wives and Daughters).

“mesmerising” The Guardian

Tickets: £20 / £16 concession (or included in Sunday / Weekend Savers Tickets)

Thursday 22 September 2022

7.30pm – 9.05pm

Nordic Church, 138 Park Lane, Liverpool, L1 8HG

The Linarol Consort – Epitaph For a Green Lover

The Linarol Consort with soprano Héloïse Bernard tells the remarkable story of Marguerite of Austria, one of the 16th century’s greatest patrons of the arts, through music from her own manuscripts.

Marguerite not only loved to dance and sing: above all she loved her green parrot. The programme’s title comes from the remarkable chanson ‘Soubz ce tumbel’, with its tragic text by Marguerite’s court poet, Jean Lemaire, taken from his ‘Epitaphe de l’Amant Vert’, in which the Green Lover refers to the beloved green parrot.

The programme comprises songs and instrumental music played by renaissance viols with a rebec, pipes and drums making an appearance too.

“a really enchanting and uplifting evening” audience member

Tickets: £18 / £12 concession

Friday 23 September 2022

7.30pm – 9.30pm

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Cathedral House, Mount Pleasant, Liverpool L3 5TQ

The Sixteen – The Choral Pilgrimage 2022

The Sixteen’s 2022 Choral Pilgrimage is a powerful and emotional programme of English choral music. Centred around Hubert Parry’s heartfelt Songs of Farewell, the tour also explores music by Campion, Howells, and award-winning composer Cecilia McDowall.