For more information and to book tickets visit www.surbitonsalons.com

In this programme, early music ensemble Ceruleo explores the themes of love and loss, interspersing extracts from Jacobean playwright John Fletcher’s play The Faithful Shepherdess with music from Monteverdi’s Seventh Book of Madrigals and his contemporaries, including Notari, Frescobaldi, Rossi and Luzzaschi. Fletcher’s play premiered in 1608 and is the first example of his influential definition of tragi-comedy. The tale’s heroine is Clorin, a virgin shepherdess and skilled healer who lives in solitude near the grave of her first love. During the course of the play, various couples are thrown into emotional turmoil and Clorin heals and reconciles them.

Ceruleo 

Taking communication, collaboration and experimentation as the basis to grow as a group, Ceruleo create dramatic programmes using spoken text alongside music for two sopranos and continuo. Every member of the group performs as a soloist, and Ceruleo use all available combinations of instruments and voices to create innovative and captivating performances.

The group formed in November 2014 at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and made their debut at the Barbican Centre, London. Since then they have performed at numerous celebrated venues and festivals. They also toured their Passion and Seduction programme at the London Festival of Baroque Music at St John’s Smith Square, in the Antiqua series in Accademia del Ricercare, Italy and as part of the Oude Muziek Fringe Festival, Utrecht.

Ceruleo’s latest project, the Arts Council England funded Burying the Dead, a staged show about Henry Purcell written by the scriptwriter Clare Norburn, began in May 2018. It has showcased at festivals including the Stroud Green Festival, Buxton International Festival, Lake District Summer Music and Baroque at the Edge at LSO St Luke’s.

To find out more about Ceruleo visit www.ceruleo.co.uk