Cambridge Villages Tour

Cambridge favourites, The Gesualdo Six return to CEM to open the new season with a highly unusual concert format! Follow the 6-part male voice ensemble on a tour of the villages circling Cambridge as they perform four short concerts.

Join us at one or more of these historic village churches for a ‘pick & mix’ of medieval and renaissance music.

The English in Europe – Part I

The Gesualdo Six explore the transmission of sacred choral traditions in Renaissance Europe, shaped by patronage, pedagogy, and cultural exchange. At its core is the Contenance Angloise—a distinctive English style of rich consonance, flowing melodies, and controlled dissonance that influenced continental composers like Binchois and Brumel.

We trace English polyphony’s impact through Dunstaple’s Veni Sancte Spiritus and Du Fay’s Nuper rosarum ores, the latter commissioned for Florence’s cathedral consecration. This repertoire reveals the fluid boundaries between artistic transmission and cultural appropriation, underscoring English composers’ lasting imprint on European polyphony.