In the late 16th-century, Orlande de Lassus was the most celebrated composer in Europe. He was without doubt the most famous advocate of the technique of parody. This is when material is borrowed and reworked from another piece, sacred or secular, by the composer himself or through someone else’s work.

The evening’s programme gives the listener a taste of this extraordinarily popular technique from the master himself, reworking his own pieces to parodies on another great master from almost a century earlier, Josquin des Pres.

Moving onto the modern day, the extraordinarily inventive composer, Bob Chilcott, has been invited to write a sacred work parodying one of Lassus’s finest secular madrigals.

Lassus is also known to have conducted some of the works of Maddalena Casulana (c. 1544 – c. 1590), an Italian composer, lutenist and singer of the late Renaissance. She is the first female composer to have had a whole book of her music printed and published in the history of western music. As such, the programme includes one of Casulana’s madrigals.

The Sixteen is a performing arts charity which exists to take beautiful and inspiring choral music, from the Renaissance to today, to as wide and diverse an audience as possible.

Tickets for the concert can be booked HERE.

Prices:

• Front Nave: £35
• Rear Nave: £30
• Side Aisle: £15
• Under 35s (Side Aisle only): £10

This year, the York Early Music Festival is celebrating the wealth of musical creativity through the human voice and song, a combination prized for its power to communicate with us most directly; and through metamorphosis, the inspiration behind the creation, reimagination and reconstruction of music across time.