In the Shadow of the Tower

Our cultural life has long been enriched and shaped by musicians who chose the UK as their home. Showcasing music by 17th-century refugee composers including Nicholas Lanier, alongside lute songs by John Dowland and Henry Purcell, this event launches our new collaboration with One Song, working with musicians from Brighton’s settled refugee communities.

Nardus Williams soprano & Elizabeth Kenny lute

When you come into the Tower of London, the Line of Kings – “the world’s longest-running visitor attraction” – presents a dramatic story of monarchy and heroism. Music has always played its part in creating these stories and making history vividly present. But the Tower is haunted by many other ghosts, other voices, and our programme weaves these in and among the Kings (and Queen)’s music. We begin and end with Henry VIII and the trumpeter John Blanke who played at his Coronation: his image is striking, his value to the King well-known, but what might his thoughts, and those of other Black Tudors whose words are lost, have been? Past and present imagining coincide in the wonderful words of Rommi Smith set as a sequence of songs by Roderick Williams.