NCEM presents online Alignment Festival

The National Centre for Early Music is presenting its most ambitious online festival yet, making 14 concerts, recorded by its digital team in celebrated historic buildings across the UK, available to audiences worldwide through the organisation's festival homepage.

These highlights from across the 2022 spring season including from both the York Early Music and the Beverley and East Riding Early Music Festivals will be available until 31 August. Alignment embraces music from the Renaissance through to the Baroque and right up to the contemporary with concerts accessed through four different online packages, tailored to different tastes for each festivalgoer.

NCEM director Delma Tomlin MBE said: ‘We wanted to share this wonderful music far and wide, so we’ve put together a programme of many of this year’s highlights for this online celebration. We hope that those of you who couldn’t attend the concerts, or indeed those of you who did and want to enjoy the concerts again, will join us for some musical magic this summer.’

All individual concerts are priced at £10, but viewers can access the complete box set including all 14 concerts for £70. The online festivals themed packages include:

• Platform Artists Series (£30) Focusing on emerging talent with Cantoría, and La Vaghezza plus festival favourites EEEmerging ensembles Prisma and Sarbacanes
• Baroque in a Box Series (£40) Featuring Ensemble Molière, the first BBC Radio 3 New Generation Baroque Ensemble, as well as Florilegium, Gonzaga Band, Paolo Pandolfo & Amélie Chemin, University of York Baroque Ensemble & Yorkshire Baroque Soloists.
• Renaissance Revels Series (£30) Featuring Rose Consort, Orí Harmelin, Profeti della Quinta & Voces Suaves

This year’s programme highlights include a film made during the NCEM residency of Spanish vocal ensemble Cantoria in the NCEM’s home base of St Margaret’s Church as well as in York’s medieval Merchant Adventurers Hall and historic St Mary’s Church, Bishophill.

British period instrument ensemble Florilegium will also feature with their Masterpieces of the Baroque concert featuring works of JS Bach, which they performed in Beverley Minster to open this year’s Beverley and East Riding Early Music Festival.

You can find out more about NCEM’s Alignment Festival here.