Henry Purcell’s King Arthur with Horrible Histories author, Terry Deary

We are delighted to be working with the Horrible Histories author, Terry Deary this summer on an exciting new production of Henry Purcell's semi-opera, King Arthur. This is one of Purcell's greatest pieces that he wrote in his short life but we are particularly excited to present it with a new narration from Terry Deary bringing the performance into the 21st century. We hope that it is a performance accessible for all the family as we are keen to inspire the next generation of young musicians. We also are keen to introduce a new audience to this music and making classical music accessible to everyone.

We will give three performances of this production at the following locations:

National Centre for Early Music in York, Saturday 18th June, 2016, 7pm

Wimpole Hall, National Trust, Cambridgeshire, Saturday 2nd July, 2016, 6.30pm

Glastonbury Abbey, Saturday 30th July, 2016, 7pm

In both York and Cambridge we will give workshops in Primary schools in the weeks leading up to the event to introduce the children to the great music of Henry Purcell and we are delighted that Terry Deary has created a short video to run alongside these workshops that will be delivered to Year 4, 5 and 6 classes. We will perform live music from King Arthur in these workshops as well as working with the children to devise their own compositions. We will perform these workshops on period instruments such as the Harpsichord, the Baroque Violin and the Baroque Trumpet.

This project is a major undertaking for a relatively new ensemble such as ourselves and comes with a huge amount of cost. Whilst we envisage excellent ticket sales we do have overheads before the project begins to address and we would be very grateful indeed if you might be able to help in anyway to support these.

The first major cost is the travel expenses for all the musicians. This particular project will involve 19 musicians so it is quite a major undertaking to organise and pay for large group travel. Whilst train journeys are possible to York and Cambridge the final leg of our journey to Glastonbury must be by private coach. There will be rehearsals at the start of June in Cambridge and again we will need to arrange transport for musicians to and from these.

We have already put some money towards the marketing of the events with the designing and printing of fliers and posters and advertising online and in print magazines including Early Music Today.

The money raised in this crowdfunding will also be to support the running of the education workshops in York and Cambridge. We were very keen to keep the cost to a minimum for the schools so that everyone possible could be involved. These workshops last for 45 minutes with each class and will be delivered by Chris Parsons, the Director of Eboracum Baroque, Max Bronstein, the BaRocks! Animateur for the ensemble and another musician involved in the King Arthur project from the group. We are passionate about developing our educational output which has already included two major projects in Cambridgeshire. It is our aim to submit a major application to the Arts Council for a touring project in 2017. We hope to make education a major part of what the ensemble does in the many years to come.

There are a number of 'rewards' for each donation level and we are delighted that Terry Deary has signed copies of his adult book 'Dangerous Days in Elizabethan England' Details of this book can be read here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dangerous-Days-Elizabethan...

If you would prefer a signed copy of a Horrible Histories children's book then please request this when making a donation.

We hope that you find this project as exciting and unique as we do and please help us to make it a great success!

Further details about Eboracum Baroque can be found at: www.eboracumbaroque.co.uk