Patrick Ayrton & Friends
Can you compose new Baroque music in 2026? Artist in residence Patrick Ayrton put it to the test. In Astrophil & Stella, his song cycle set to texts by Elizabethan poets such as Philip Sidney, John Donne, and William Shakespeare, he employs the musical language of 17th-century England. After years of studying counterpoint, rhetoric, and improvisation, this is Ayrton’s compelling proposition: a love letter to the English Baroque.
Programme
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Patrick Ayrton
Ouverture instrumental
Oh, for a bowl of fat Canary (Text: John Lyly c1553-1606)
Oh, that joy so soon should waste (Text: Ben Jonson 1572-1637)
Fairy revels (Text: John Lyly)
Sublunar Pavan & Galliard instrumental
Witches' Dance (Text: Ben Jonson)
Come Sleep! (Text: Sir Philip Sydney 1554-1586)
Fairy Land (Text: William Shakespeare 1564-1616)
A Wanderer’s Fantasy instrumental
Where the bee sucks (Text: William Shakespeare)
Syrinx (Text: John Lyly)
Under the greenwood tree (Text: William Shakespeare)
(from: Astrophil & Stella, 2025)
Programme subject to change*1961
Musicians
- Lauren Lodge-Campbell soprano
- Louise Ayrton, Camille Aubret, Boris Winter violin I
- Yaoré Talibart, Valentine Pinardel, Elise Dupont violin II
- Jasper Snow, Marta Paramo viola
- Salomé Gasselin viola da gamba
- Thomas de Pierrefeu violone
- Lucile Tessier, Sébastien Marq recorder
- Antoine Torunczyk oboe
- Lucile Tessier bassoon
- Etienne Galletier theorbo
- Marie-Ange Petit percussion
- Patrick Ayrton musical direction, harpsichord, organ
