For the Honour of the Cittie - Music for Ceremony, Festival & Feast in London 1550-1650

The Waits were the principal band heard in the great halls, churches, ceremonies, revels, masques, theatres and grand pageants of London from the late Middle Ages until the 19th century. This concert focuses on music from the golden age of the London Waits, from roughly 1550-1650, when the highly skilled and esteemed musicians performed as the elite aural emblem of the City of London. The City Musick perform on shawms, sackbuts, cornetts, dulcians, recorders, trumpets and drums.

William Lyons, Nicholas Perry, Sam Goble, Gawain Glenton,Tom Lees, George Bartle, Sarah Humphrys

Step back in time to the sixteenth century and hear the stunning renaissance choral and instrumental music of Orlando Lassus, William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Richard Dering and Claudio Monteverdi.

Performing will be the celebrated early music sagbutts & cornetts ensemble, City Musick led by William Lyons together with St Davids Cathedral Choir conducted by Oliver Waterer.

This concert represents festive music and song as played by the civic band of waits whose traditional duties included playing for the singing of carols around the streets of the city. The London waits were “excellent and expert musitians” who performed for masque, theatre, civic ceremony and in church, also giving regular public concerts.

An appearance by The City Musick on the popular classical music show. We will be playing live and talking about our new CD and the Christmas concert at St John’s Smith Square in London on the 13th December.