Continuo Foundation announces its 12th round of awards to Early Music ensembles in the UK

In its 12th round of grants, Continuo Foundation has awarded £105,000 to 28 Early Music ensembles.

This funding will support projects ranging from a Bach Passion in Northern Ireland to performances of string quartets by a pioneering woman composer to music from a manuscript linked to Anne Boleyn. Notably, 40% of this round's funding went to 10 emerging ensembles formed since 2020, five of them first-time Continuo grant recipients. Beyond performance opportunities, the awards will also fund recordings and video material that helps young musicians build their professional presence and secure future work.

For one of these emerging groups, Ulster Consort, the award makes an ambitious undertaking possible: performing Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Northern Ireland, where opportunities to hear this masterpiece are scarce and relatively few local period-instrument players are available.

‘Programming Bach’s St Matthew Passion is not for the faint-hearted, and to do so in Northern Ireland with a recently established group and with only a few local period-instrumentalists to call upon is possibly madness, but this grant from Continuo Foundation has encouraged us to know that we can make it happen,’ says Music Director Matthew Owens.

The grant awarded to Northern Ireland-based Sestina Music will bring Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 to Belfast, combining Early Music specialists with its Next Generation Artists and, for the first time, local choristers from St George’s, St Polycarp’s and St Peter’s church choirs.

The Cambridge String Quartet’s Tales of Maddalena turns to little-known composer Maddalena Lombardini, whose six quartets appeared in 1769, while the genre was still taking shape. At King’s College, Cambridge, a display of first-edition parts will accompany the music. The grant will help pay for professional filming, giving the performance a further life as material with which the quartet can introduce its work to promoters and audiences. ‘Building a professional portfolio of recorded material is pivotal to raising the profile of an emerging ensemble like the Cambridge String Quartet,’ the group says.

Fontanella Recorder Quartet’s A Falcon Fallen follows Anne Boleyn’s turbulent life through music from the manuscript associated with her, held at the Royal College of Music. The quartet places this research alongside music by Hildegard von Bingen, Henry Purcell and Arvo Pärt, tracing changing ideas of fortune and fate. ‘We are especially happy to be bringing this programme to new venues and historic houses, helping us to introduce historical performance to new listeners and to develop our audience base,’ says Fontanella’s Annabel Knight.

The 28 projects demonstrate the abundant variety and creativity in the UK Early Music scene. Further examples include Ardour Baroque’s world-premiere recording of trio sonatas by Antonio Luigi Baldassini, placing the little-known Roman composer alongside Corelli and Handel. Queen Victoria’s Consort and the West Gallery Music Association will be recreating English parish music from around 1840, using historic instruments including the serpent, keyed bugle and English bass horn.

Manchester Baroque will reconstruct a concert programme from 30 April 1745, including George Hayden’s rarely heard cantata Martillo. For the 2027 Beethoven bicentenary, the Prince Regent’s Band offers rare Swedish brass transcriptions and the UK premiere of a recently rediscovered brass arrangement of the First Symphony. FIGURE pairs Bach with new commissions from Jonathan Dove and Freya Waley-Cohen, and Musica Antica Rotherhithe traces the 17th-century guitar through repertoire from Europe and Latin America, touring to Durham and Sheffield.  

‘The applications in this round have demonstrated once again the ever-increasing quality and creativity of professional Early Music ensembles working across the UK. Supporting ten emerging ensembles with 40% of this round’s funding is testament to the strength of the sector's talent pipeline and future growth potential.

‘We are deeply grateful to our donors and trustees, whose generosity and commitment make this work possible, and to our distinguished Advisory Panel for the expertise and care they bring to assessing every application. This grant support, and promotion through our Continuo Connect hub, helps ensembles build their careers and bring more of this extraordinary music within reach of audiences everywhere.’

Tina Vadaneaux, Founder and CEO of Continuo Foundation

The Round 12 awards will provide funding for 68 concerts in 46 locations. Since being founded in 2020, the Foundation has raised and awarded nearly £1.3 million, supporting 885 concerts in 289 different locations across the UK (see map below).

Continuo Foundation supports established and emerging professional period-instrument ensembles, helping them develop projects and reach audiences across the UK. To view upcoming concerts supported by Continuo Foundation grants on Continuo Connect, visit our What's On page and select 'Continuo-funded events only'.