The Sense of Baroque: When The Royal Trumpets Sound

French ensemble Marguerite Louise in collaboration with Jenny Sealey, a British theatre director, advocating accessibility of arts.

Majestic, powerful, and full of resonance, Baroque trumpets once filled the gilded halls of Versailles, celebrating royal triumphs and marking historic ceremonies. Today, their brilliance returns in a concert specially designed for deafblind audiences, offering a truly multisensory encounter with music.

The event will begin and end with an introduction and a series of sensory experiences—olfactory, tactile, and gustatory—closely linked to the music and its themes, preparing the audience for the performance. Presented in an intimate, close-up format, the concert places participants and their interpreters at the heart of the ensemble, surrounded by musicians and in dialogue with both instruments and performers.

The choice of instruments—trumpets and percussion—ensures rich vibrations and resonances, while the selected repertoire highlights highly symbolic works of the Baroque period, pieces that carry clear emotions and powerful stories.

This inclusive programme is part of the wider artistic collaboration between Ensemble Marguerite Louise and the Choir of New College, Oxford, here reimagined to be accessible for audiences with sensory disabilities. More than a concert, it is an invitation to a cultural journey where sound, touch, scent, and taste converge to bring history and emotion vividly to life.

Deaf since the age of 7, Jenny Sealey has been the Artistic Director of Graeae since 1997. Since then, she has pioneered a new theatrical language and aesthetics of artistic access, experimenting with bilingual British Sign Language (BSL) and English, pre-recorded BSL, creative captioning, and in-ear/live audio description methods.

Jenny has directed productions, run workshops and given presentations internationally in Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Brazil, Russia and across Europe. She co-directed the London 2012 Paralympics Opening Ceremony alongside Bradley Hemmings (GDIF).

Programme to feature extracts from:
Appel d’Olifant
Fanfares en échos (15th century)
Sanz Chaconne (sackbutt and organ)
Purcell 'Funeral March' and 'Canzone' from Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary
Snow Two duets
Charpentier Prélude from Te Deum

Performers:
Jenny Sealey moderator, co-director
Jean-Daniel Souchon trumpet
Antoine Azuelos trumpet
Jean-Charles Denis trumpet
Claire-Ombeline Muhlmeyer trumpet
Manon Duchemann percussion
Gaétan Jarry organ, conductor

Viktoria Violleau, Sally McNeill, Zara Jayne experts in disability and inclusive arts
Elisabeth de Feydeau (Arty Fragrance) olfactory expert

To participate, please register with the interpreter, sending an email with your names to
. The number of places is limited to 10 deafblind participants and 10 interpreters.