The Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists have been at the cutting edge of historically informed performance since their foundation over 60 years ago. With esteemed Baroque conductor Jonathan Sells – himself a former Monteverdi singer – at the helm, the Monteverdi Choir showcases enthralling works from their repertoire.

Where better to start than George Frideric Handel's spectacular Dixit Dominus, a tour-de-force of the choral repertoire that showcases both the 22-year-old composer's utter mastery of the form and the assembled musicians' facility with its dramatic and technical demands. Heard at every royal funeral service for the past three hundred years, Henry Purcell's deeply moving Funeral Sentences is a poignant musical expression of the sorrow and dignity surrounding death.

Johann Sebastian Bach's superlative Motets, one of the stand-out achievements of Baroque polyphony, close the concert. Listening some years after Bach's death, Mozart is said to have exclaimed, 'Now there is something one can learn from!'

Supported by Dunard Fund