With some wonderfully emotive French music for Christmastide we turn to Marc-Antoine Charpentier for our annual seasonal concerts.

Shepherds and angels tell us the story of Nativity in two expressive sacred works about the arrival of baby Jesus.  

This is a rare chance to hear us perform festive music from 17th-century France, which is seldom performed in the UK. 

Find out more about the music in this Q&A with  our artistic advisor James Halliday.


To book tickets:

Sat 7 Dec, 4.30pm
Early Music Christmas Festival in York
sold out

Mon 9 Dec, 7.30pm
St John's Smith Square
BOOK NOW

Ahead of our December concerts at the Christmas Festival of the National Centre for Early Music in York and at St John's Smith Square in London, we had a chat with James Halliday to take us through the specific seasonal repertoire by Marc-Antoine Charpentier we'll be performing:

"If you’re on a quest for the ever more elusive ‘meaning of Christmas’, then this concert is for you."

Read the Q&A with James here

​L'ospedale is now available on DVD!
With the upcoming release of our first CD, we thought it would be a good occasion to release a DVD as well.  L'ospedale was our very first opera production, at Wilton's Music Hall in 2015. Taking re-discovered material by an anonymous 17th-century composer which sets the biting and zany satire of Antonio Abati's poetry, L'ospedale resonates across the centuries as we continue to struggle to keep ourselves healthy at a reasonable cost.​

We're over the moon to announce that Sony Classical will release our debut album Magnificat - Christmas in Leipzig on 15 November 2019.

Opening with Schelle’s sacred concerto Machet die Tore weit, followed by Kuhnau’s Magnificat which provided Bach with the blueprint for his 1723 version in Eb (including Christmas lauds), the album traces the connection between the three ‘Johanns’ who were consecutive cantors at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig through their festive music for the Advent and Christmas period. 

Our first CD was recorded live at Milton Court in London during our Christmas in Leipzig concert in December last year. A huge amount of work and support went into making it. Thank you to all who contributed to making this happen. We hope this makes for a perfect Christmas stocking filler...

ORDER YOUR COPY

For our next performance we turn to Renaissance polyphony with a small vocal ensemble and organ.
Taking the ever-present emotions of 'fear' and 'hope' as common ground, we pair vocal music by Schütz, Schein and Kuhnau under the shadow of the Thirty Years War, with works by Byrd and Tallis, Catholics in a shifting religious and political landscape.

Thursday 7 Nov - London International Festival of Early Music
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From the launch to our debut BBC Proms one month ago, it has been a fantastic Prom season for Solomon's Knot! Here's a nice clip of our quirky mash-up with Jason Singh from that launch event back in April. 

Ahead of our Proms debut, we spoke to Jon Jacob of the Thoroughly Good Classical Music Podcast to discuss how Solomon's Knot prepares and rehearses ahead of performances. Jonny Sells (bass & artistic director), Inga Maria Klaucke (bassoon), James Toll (violin), Kate Symonds-Joy (alto), and Tom Herford (tenor)  joined in conversation.

Have a listen!

We've been working with director Tama Matheson for our dramatised Purcell performance at the Ryedale Festival and spoke to him about his ideas for this performance during rehearsals.

"Purcell's music seems to cry out for some manner of theatrical treatment​"

Read the Q&A with Tama

Ahead of our Prom debut on 14 August, we performed live at BBC Radio 3 In Tune in a special broadcast from the Imperial College Union building to celebrate the first night of the Proms. In view of our upcoming residency at the Ryedale Festival, we played some lovely tunes from the fantasy world of Purcell's Fairy Queen - Act V.

Listen back to the broadcast 

Looking ahead to December, we are delighted to announce our next concerts for the Christmas season. With some wonderfully emotive French music for Christmastide we turn to Marc-Antoine Charpentier with two expressive sacred dramas about the arrival of baby Jesus: In nativitatem Domini Canticum H.416 and the Pastorale sur la naissance de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ H.483.

This is a rare chance to hear us perform music from 17th-century France. Catch us at the York Early Music Christmas Festival on Saturday 7 December where we'll be making our debut, or at St John's Smith Square on Monday 9 December.