Stef Conner joins her fellow ancient-songstress, Hanna Marti (Sequentia Ensemble for Medieval Music, Moirai), to breathe new life into some of the oldest surviving British songs and poems. From the hammers of Pythagoras and the strings of the harp, to the melody of the nightingale and lament of the swan, all the songs in this concert have words expressing music’s celestial beauty from the medieval point of view. Hanna and Stef are joined by special guest Barnaby Brown (“hauntingly beautiful” Gramophone; “world class” – The Guardian), playing the early British triplepipe. Join them in one of Cambridge’s most ancient and atmospheric venues, the Round Church, to be blissfully transported by two-voiced harmonies, deep drones, Latin sequences, Hebridean melodies, Old English riddles, and musical storytelling, from the 10th to the 12th centuries.
About Hanna Marti
Hanna is a stunning soprano, harpist, and “reconstructionista”, specialising in early medieval song. She was born in Basel and grew up at the southern end of the Swiss Jura mountains. When she was a teenager she played electric guitar in various rock bands and wrote songs for her own group. She discovered singing and took voice lessons with Dorothea Galli (Zürich). After getting interested in medieval music, she studied at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. During those years Hanna Marti also became acquainted with the lute – studying with Peter Croton – and discovered the medieval harp.
In 2015 she completed a Masters Diploma (voice) at the Schola Cantorum as a student of Evelyn Tubb. Since finishing her studies Hanna Marti has focused most of her artistic work on medieval song. As a member of Sequentia ensemble she has performed internationally in various programs. A CD-recording with Sequentia was released in May 2018 on the label Glossa.
In her own ensemble Moirai (co-directed with Mara Winter) she specializes on the re-creation and reconstruction of medieval song.
Watch Hanna perform her stunning setting of Orpheus from Ovid’s Metamorphosis here:
“Marti sang an extended narration of the death and transformation of Orpheus, “Collis erat collemque,” from the Metamorphosis. Crossing the contingent line between declamation and song, this was the musical high point of the concert and the epitome of Sequentia’s art. Marti reconstructed the song with melodic material from other 12th-century settings of poetry from Antiquity, and used that as a platform for an enthralling improvisation. Her singing felt perfectly formed, with complete integration of the drama of poetry and music.”
New York Classical Review on Sequentia’s performance of 31 April 2017 at Corpus Christi Church, New York City
About Barnaby Brown
Barnaby Brown leads the revival of the northern triplepipe, the precursor of the bagpipe in Britain and Ireland. He also champions the art of canntaireachd, a chant which imitates the sound of the Highland bagpipe, and plays pibroch on a reproduction of a chanter owned by the Blind Piper of Gairloch (1656–1754). Recently, he began exploring pipes reproduced from Ancient Greek, Sumerian and Paleolithic finds.
His passion for giving a contemporary voice to ancient instruments led to three projects with Delphian Records. In Praise of Saint Columba was released in 2014. This was followed by Spellweaving (2016) – a companion to his PhD research at the University of Cambridge – and Set upon the Rood (2017), on which he plays triplepipes and a Graeco-Roman aulos. His latest release (also on Delphian) is Apollo and Dionysus, on which he performs alongside Stef, on the Pydna and Louvre auloi.
“Barnaby Brown was the most riveting, using vulture bones and Sardinian cane pipes to play stirring Celtic drones. At no point did the quality drop below world class, and all of it without a lick of electricity.”
***** The Guardian, review of Wysing Polyphonic festival, July 2016
Check out Barnaby introducing the incredible triplepipe here: