Unquiet Thoughts

Founded in 2023 around Emma Kirkby’s kitchen table, Dowland’s Foundry returns John Dowland’s lute songs to the intimate, domestic world for which they were written. The First Book of Songs was a sensation in its day, and in Dowland’s anniversary year, this programme places it centre stage. The songs unfold like a conversation, voices looping, interrupting and rejoining, always in close dialogue with the lute. Four leading singers are joined by Sam Brown, dubbed the ‘Eric Clapton of the lute’, in music by turns restless, dark and tender.

‘Dowland’s Foundry encapsulates what Dowland called the consent of speaking harmony’ - Dame Emma Kirkby

Programme:
John Dowland The First Book of Songs (1597)

Performers:
Dowland's Foundry
Sam Brown lute