Continuo Connect — First Encounters

Philippa Hyde: soprano
Agnes Chin: guzheng
William Summers: baroque flute
Ibrahim Aziz: viola da gamba
Yeo Yat-Soon: harpsichord

18th century musical exchanges across the continents focusing on London, Paris and Beijing. Music includes Chinese melodies brought back to London by the Macartney Embassy (the first diplomatic mission sent from Britain to China in 1794), the first Chinese music to be printed in Europe in a publication which appeared in Paris in 1735, Chinese music transcribed by French Jesuit priest Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, and music by three visitors to London: Loum Kiqua (a Cantonese merchant), Ignatius Sancho (a naturalised Briton who was born on board a Transatlantic slave ship) and Joseph Bologne, Chevalier se Saint Georges (a Frenchman born in Guadaloupe to a French father and a former slave mother from Senegal); the programme also includes music on Chinese subjects by Purcell and François Couperin and music by Rameau which we know were performed in the Forbidden City in the 18th century.