Reformations: Concerto with Dunedin Consort and Sean Shibe

Early and contemporary music often occupy a remarkably similar aural space: intimate, other-worldly and unconventional. Highlights from this selection include forays into Scotland’s early lute manuscripts, the exquisite twinges of Purcell’s viol works, and John Dowland’s seminal Lachrimae, its ‘falling tear’ motif denoting tears of both sorrow and joy. There is the London premiere of a new concerto by Canadian composer Cassandra Miller, a Sinfonia by American composer Linda Catlin Smith, and music by James MacMillan and his one-time student David Fennessy.

Sean Shibe is one of the world’s finest and most innovative guitarists who, as The Guardian puts it, ‘sustains a world of intensity and introspection through playing that buzzes with vitality. The attention to detail in his playing is breathtaking’.