The Gesualdo Six – The Wishing Tree

From renaissance Europe to the present day.

The Gesualdo Six is an award-winning British vocal ensemble comprises some of the UK’s finest consort singers, directed by Owain Park. Praised for their imaginative programming and impeccable blend, the ensemble formed in 2014 for a performance of Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories in Cambridge and has gone on to perform at numerous major festivals across UK, Europe, North America and Australia.

About the concert

Their performance in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall presents a wide-ranging selection of inspiring vocal consort works from Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, Josquin des Prez, Joby Talbot and more.

The first half of the program explores sacred music from the Renaissance in Europe, written at a time of great change and fuelled by religious division. Works by Byrd and Tomkins move through startling harmonic shifts and expressive word paintings. These pieces will be performed alongside works from the tradition of the Oltremontani. This tradition saw composers travel ‘over the mountains’ to Italy to seek pedagogy and patronage.

The latter half of the program explores works by composers from this same school, tracing the evolution of the madrigal form and finally leading to a selection of contemporary pieces which reinvent these old compositional techniques.