Continuo Foundation celebrates three years with new grant round

UK-based early music charity Continuo Foundation, is this week set to celebrate three years since its founding with the announcement of its latest round of grant recipients. In this latest round £100,000 has been awarded to 25 period-instrument ensembles for upcoming projects including concerts, tours and recordings.

While the current round grantee list featured established groups including Consone Quartet, Dunedin Consort, Ensemble Augelletti, Ensemble Molière and Solomon’s Knot, eight of the grantees applied through the charity’s ‘recently formed groups’ category. These received 40% of the total grant allocation, as compared to 20% in previous rounds.

Continuo Foundation founder, Tina Vadaneaux, said: ‘We received 58 grant applications, with many more high-quality creative projects than we were able to support with the £100,000 available from our generous donors. The selected projects will enable musicians to delight audiences across the country, sharing their musical passions and scholarship.’

You can find the full list of grantees below:

• Arculo Consort of Viols
• Baroque in the North
• Brook Street Band
• Cambridge Handel Opera Company
• Chelys Consort of Viols
• Consone Quartet
• Dunedin Consort
• Early Opera Company
• Endelienta Baroque
• Ensemble Augelletti
• Ensemble Molière
• Figure
• Illyria Consort
• La Serenissima
• Le Foyer des Artistes
• Linarol Consort of Viols
• Liturina
• Manchester Baroque
• Monteverdi String Band
• Obligato
• Rautio Piano Trio
• Sakuntala Trio
• Solomon’s Knot
• Sounds Historical
• Spinacino Consort

Since September 2020, Continuo has raised funds totaling £650,000 for grants supporting 85 ensembles for a total of 145 creative projects benefiting 900 musicians and almost 100,000 audience participants. This new round follows the launch of Continuo Connect, Continuo’s online hub for early music. The new hub offers charity grantees and other emerging artists a greater visibility and credibility with promoters. More than 500 live events have been featured on the platform in the last six months.