H i r e u s
The Renaissance Singers can be booked for private concerts, workshops, receptions, launch events and church services, including weddings. We specialise in music from the mid-15th to the 17th century but can perform a much wider range of repertoire as desired, including Gregorian chant. In most cases, we can adjust the number of singers provided to meet your needs and your budget. Please use the details on the Contact page to get in touch with us for a tailor-made quote.
Concerts
The Renaissance Singers is London’s foremost amateur chamber choir specialising in early music and has given acclaimed performances at music festivals in the UK and abroad. In recent years the choir has been invited to sing at festivals in Copenhagen, Clare (Suffolk), Leeds, Warwick, Leicester and Stamford.
We can create an imaginative, tailor-made programme around a given theme, composer or period or give a repeat performance of one of our recent concerts at your festival or venue.
You can find details of our previous concerts here.
The Renaissance Singers performing at the Moroni exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, November 2014
© Royal Academy of Arts, photo: Benedict Johnson
Private workshops
A private workshop led by the Renaissance Singers is a wonderful gift for a loved one with a keen interest in early music. Is there a work they've always wanted to sing but couldn't get the required singers together? Or do you run a choir that could benefit from a workshop with us?
Whatever the occasion, we can work within the constraints of your budget to provide the whole choir or a small number of singers per part to supplement your own guests or members. A private workshop could be arranged for a weekday evening in London or further afield during a weekend.
Special Events
The Renaissance Singers was established to promote in particular the sacred music of the Renaissance. Alongside our regular concerts, we have been able to meet this aim recently working with some prestigious organisations such as the British Museum, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Academy of Arts, who have hired us to perform recitals of works to support special exhibitions. More details of these are given below.
Treasures of Heaven: saints, relic and devotion in medieval Europe
The British Museum’s major summer exhibition in 2011 explored the spiritual and artistic significance of Christian relics and reliquaries in medieval Europe. Featuring some of the finest sacred treasures of the medieval age, the exhibition gave visitors the opportunity to see objects from more than forty institutions, many of which had not been seen in the UK before, brought together for the first time.
The Renaissance Singers were hired to appear at a British Museum evening event to showcase this exhibition, and performed sets of music in the Enlightenment Gallery, themed around saints and the pilgrimages to see their relics.
Medical notes: medieval melodic delights
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has a number of medieval music fragments, retrieved in the 20th century from the bindings in its rare book and manuscript collections. Dr Helen Deeming, senior lecturer in music at Royal Holloway, University of London, gave a lecture at the RCP in Autumn 2013 exploring what this music is, how we can decode it, and why it ended up as printers’ scrap.
The Renaissance Singers were hired to provide musical examples to illustrate the lecture.
A Renaissance Christmas at the Royal Academy of Arts
The RA invited guests to get the festive season of 2014 started with a bang at this unique celebration, bringing to life the world depicted in the paintings of 16th-century master portraitist Giovanni Battista Moroni.
As well as entrance to the exhibition, the evening included choral performances from The Renaissance Singers, bringing to life the Italian sacred music of Moroni’s age, as well as roaming minstrels, dance performances and more.