Carols at the Convent: Festive Baroque Music

Oxford’s premier upper voice ensemble returns to Christ Church to reveal newly-discovered music for Advent and Christmas from Baroque English convents in Europe.

From the flashiest French masterpieces and virtuosic English motets to gentle Dutch lullabies – alongside some familiar favourites – enter a wonderful musical world and join us for a musical journey through early modern England, France, and the Low Countries at Christmas, all within the former priory of Christ Church Cathedral.

The Basilinda Consort is an early music ensemble dedicated to exploring the musical lives of English Christian women religious. Focused on exiled English convent music, we explore the rich history of medieval and early modern English women as singers, players, composers, commentators, writers, and even bookbinders.

Dr Caroline Lesemann-Elliott is the Albi Rosenthal Visiting Fellow in Music at the Bodleian Library. Caroline’s project at the Bodleian will provide the first complete overview of the music collection of the Blount family of Mapledurham, a collection acquired by the Bodleian Library in 1983. The Blount music collection contains manuscripts from around 1700, including sources associated with young English Catholicwomen such as Theresa and Martha Blount, and Francis and Lettice Tichborne. Caroline’s PhD research uncovered how these manuscripts document the musical connections gained by these girls through their education at exiled English convents in France. Caroline’s Bodleian project will explore how the manuscripts reflect interpersonal relationships and cultural exchange, seeking to broaden the focus of musicological research away from famous composers and instead to illuminate a range of cultural go-betweens who moved across geographic borders.