liverpool early music festival
"Inclusive... non-pretentious... I really wish all “classical” concerts were
like this” Attila the Stockbroker on our Christmas concert in Worthing 2018 in
The Morning Star The Telling attempts to break new ground, where new writing and
music collide. We are also known for our special intimate performances of carols
and performances of medieval and renaissance music. Our most recent show, I Spie
(2021), starring Dominic Marsh, Danny Webb and Alice Imelda, toured the UK and
was released on film. It tells the little known story of composer John Dowland
and his brush with the Elizabethan secret service. Pre-pandemic, in 2019/20 we
undertook 28 performances & 4 public workshops. We have performed at Buxton
International Music Festival, Music at Oxford (3 performances) Little Missenden
Festival, Brighton Early Music Festival (4 performances), Keele Concerts
Society, Kingston Early Music, Totnes Early Music Society – and working with
other groups including The Sixteen, we spearheaded our own Liverpool Early Music
Festival. The Telling leads the way in delivering online workshops - delivering
weekly singing sessions for over a year throughout the 2020/21 lockdowns which
participants described as a “lifeline”: “I found myself in tears as I realised
it was the first time in many years I'd actually been able to sing a carol”
Workshop participant We record for First Hand Records: our first CD Gardens of
Delight was selected for BBC Music Magazine playlist for April 2019 and our
second CD Secret Life of Carols reached #25 in the Classical Charts in December
2019. David Mellor called it his "absolute favourite" 2019 Christmas Album and
it was in The Guardian, BBC Music Magazine, The Daily Mail and Classic FM's
“Best Christmas Albums” lists. "imaginative and eclectic" The Guardian, Fiona
Maddocks on Secret Life of Carols CD "Siren-like voices ... an ardour to these
performances that is hard to resist." BBC Music Magazine on Gardens of Delight
CD “unexpected delight from beginning to end, and really strongly recommended”
David Mellor, Classic FM/Daily Mail on Secret Life of Carols CD Our most recent
CD consists of the soundtracks of the Vision and Unsung Heroine concertplays,
released in memory of Ariane Prüssner, and received a four-star review from BBC
Music Magazine: "austere, serene and highly evocative" BBC Music Magazine on
Vision and Unsung Heroine Soundtracks During 2020/21, The Telling received
critical praise for their online arthouse films of concertplays. Most notably,
Vision by Clare Norburn, which follows the extraordinary medieval Abbess
Hildegard of Bingen played by Teresa Banham (RSC/Shared Experience), was
selected by The Guardian’s Tim Ashley as one of the Top 3 online summer music
highlights alongside the Salzburg and Edinburgh Festivals. "Norburn and mezzo
Ariane Prüssner are mesmerising in the music." The Guardian, Tim Ashley Love in
the Lockdown also by Clare Norburn, starring Alec Newman & Rachael Stirling, is
an online play with music, rehearsed and filmed entirely over Zoom or on actor &
musicians' recording devices from their own homes. It was shortlisted in 6
categories for the SceneSaver Awards at which Nicholas Renton won Best Director.
"an exploration of the boundaries between art & life ... intelligent … does more
than reflect overfamiliar pandemic situations back at us ... it finds new
terrain" The Guardian, Arifa Akbar
