Musica Antica Rotherhithe

04/09/2025

Our next concert’s coming up in just over two weeks - madrigals and lute songs from 16th and early 17th century Italy by Striggio, Casulana, Leonora Orsini, Marenzio and Monteverdi, and the next in our series of Banchieri’s comedies, La Saviezza Giovanile. Beautiful music, and words you wouldn’t normally see beamed onto the wall of a church. Unless you’ve been to one of our concerts over the past two years, in which case you probably know what to expect. Tickets £2-£10 as ever, with a bar open from 7pm! |

16/06/2025

Holy Trinity Rotherhithe was filled to the brim for our Vivaldi Motezuma and Rameau Les Incas du Perou on Saturday - the first operas set in the New World! The latter has one of the best trios of the 18th century for a finale: the conquistador Don Carlos and Inca princess Phani run off into the sunset while the evil priest Huascar rages before being crushed by a boulder - all during a volcanic eruption. Special mention to (Huascar) who ‘shook the church’, .seale for a gorgeous rendition of Viens H***n, for being an equally fantastic Aztec general and volcano, and the band (, Andrew Taheny, Madison Marshall, , , Jude Chandler and ) for rending Rameau’s incredible earthquake scenes with a fraction of the players he would have had. We’ll be back in the Autumn with three concerts of music from fifteenth and sixteenth century Italy, and in the meantime, will be preparing for the recording of our first album! |

28/05/2025

We’re straying into the 18th century for our next concert, with two depictions of the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Peru by Vivaldi and Rameau. They play fast and loose with the history: Vivaldi’s public couldn’t tolerate a sad ending, so his Motezuma is light on smallpox and slavery and full of self-sacrifice and reconciliation. Rameau’s Incas of Peru ends with the happy union of a conquistador and an Inca princess, and their final duet is one of our favourite moments in the history of music: Rameau sets it simultaneously with a rage aria (sung by the evil priest Huascar) and the tremors of a volcanic eruption! As ever, we have the likes of the wonderful , .seale, and singing, and a fantastic band of historical performance specialists lined up including , , and . Tickets are £2-10, and our bar will be open from 7pm |

10/04/2025

A full house for the first performance of Antonio Draghi’s beautiful sacred drama L’Humanità Redenta since 8 April 1669 on Saturday! We’ve very little in the way of sound recorded, but you can now download our edition, complete with editorial notes and a parallel translation, for free on our website, and take a look at some of Draghi’s (pretty daring) music yourself! We hope it won’t be long before it gets another outing, whether it’s being performed by us or another ensemble. |

14/03/2025

Our addition to the lenten-Easter music taking place this year is the first performance of Antonio Draghi’s L’Humanità Redenta since 1669! Draghi wrote a sacred drama for the Hapsburg court every year from 1668-1700 (and a staggering number of operas!) but his work is almost never heard today. L’Humanità Redenta takes the form of a dialogue between humanity and hope, is full of gorgeous music and touches on the themes of contrition, forgiveness, and the power of love over hate - things our world seems as in need of now as ever. We’ll also be releasing a modern edition of the score for free, so it can be studied, performed more widely. Tickets are £2-£10, available from our website. Artwork (much edited) courtesy of Albrecht Durer |

25/02/2025

A new venue for us last Friday, taking Seb Harcombe’s drama L’Elisio to the beautiful, historic chapel at Guy’s Hospital. We’ll be back in Rotherhithe on 5th April for the first performance of Antonio Draghi’s oratorio L’Humanita Redenta since 1669, which will premiere with a new performing edition free to download and use. Tickets (as little as £2) via our website! |

13/02/2025

Musica Antica perform music by Stefano Landi, Luigi Rossi and Michelangelo Falvetti alongside powerful testimonies from people who have awoken from comas.

03/02/2025

We’re kicking off 2025 with a new brand new piece of theatre, in collaboration with director Seb Harcombe! L’Elisio combines the surreal, funny, and intensely moving testimonies of people who experienced another life whilst being in comas with music by Luca Marenzio, Stefano Landi, Luigi Rossi, Michelangelo Falvetti and H.I.F Biber. We’re hugely grateful the the ex-patients at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital who were happy to share their stories, and to Guy’s Hospital for the use of their beautiful 18th Century chapel - now the oldest of its kind to survive. Tickets are £10-£15, available from our website! |

15/01/2025

2025 Season on sale!

We celebrated on Sunday by recording some Marenzio from partbooks and candlelight (around a table decorated according to a description of a table in the house of courtesan Imperia Cognati) along with some Charpentier and Boesset.

The results of that will appear shortly! In the meantime you can take a look at our concerts for this year: six programmes covering three hundred years of music from Italy and France, including the first performance of an oratorio since 1669, the reconstruction of a musical entertainment at the home of a Venetian courtesan in 1517, and two eighteenth-century depictions of the dying days of the Aztec and Inca empires in the form of Rameau’s Les Incas and Vivaldi’s Montezuma. We’re also delighted to be hosting Lucine Musaelian for a programme based on the musical life of Tarquinia Molza, Tim Braithwaite for a workshop on improvised polyphony, and stage director Sebastian Harcombe on a special programme of music and spoken word at Guy’s Hospital Chapel. You can find tickets (£2-£10 as ever) via our website.

03/12/2024

And that’s a wrap on 2024! Six new programmes presented in Rotherhithe, two beautiful new venues in the form of and , and a revival of our staging of the comic opera Lo Spedale for . For 2025 we’ve got an oratorio that hasn’t seen the light of day since 1669, Aztecs, Incas, a recreation of the musical soirées hosted by a venetian pr******te, and more lovely madrigals by Marenzio - all dates will be announced on 1st January! Crucially, tickets will also remain at £10, as part of our effort to make this wonderful music as accessible as possible |

03/11/2024

Our home venue in Rotherhithe was full to the brim for our Florentine soundscape last week! We were so sorry to lose to laryngitis and hugely grateful to for stepping in at the last minute. We’ll be returning to the Renaissance (hopefully with Emma-Lisa!) with a Venetian programme in 2025, but before then we have one more concert this year: scenes from the earliest operas, some lovely madrigals by Marenzio, and Monteverdi’s Ballo dell’Ingrate on 30th November. Tickets and further details on our website! These beautiful photos were taken at our concert last week by . |

20/10/2024

One week to go! A beautiful programme (if we say so ourselves).

Musica Antica Rotherhithe and lutenist-singer Emma-Lisa Roux present a soundscape of Florence during one of the most turbulent points in its history.