Performances

Facets of Time is a dramatic lute-song programme performed by Sam Brown and Daniel Thompson. It is based around one of the Renaissance’s central fascinations Old Father Time with music by John Dowland, John Daniel, Alfonso Ferrabosco, Thomas Morley and Barry Mills, and words by William Shakespeare.

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Caught between the scientific and the superstitious, Elizabethan England was deeply fascinated – and often unsettled – by the figure of Old Time. Winged, withered, with scythe in hand, Time was for the Elizabethans a fearful, all-consuming figure, and a potent vehicle for many vital themes. In this programme of words and music, we encounter Time’s many forms: in sleep, in music, and death; as a playful challenge to stubborn lovers and as the ultimate test of true love; its nightmarish distortion at the hands of Macbeth, and its utter defeat by the enduring and unchanging  Queen Elizabeth.

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Nigel Foster is Founder-Director of the London Song Festival and has played for numerous renowned singers including Dame Sarah Connolly, Susan Bullock, Roderick Williams and Nadine Benjamin. Nigel has given master-classes and led workshops in the song repertoire at summer courses and music programmes all over the UK and abroad:  Opera Plus, Asolo, Saarburg and Vianden Festivals, Summit City Art Song Festival, University of Toledo. 

This Festival is special because of the award of the first Fischer Fund Shakespeare Song Prize for the best Shakespeare Song composed in 2025.  The Prize will be awarded by Manuela Perteghella MP for Stratford-upon-Avon and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Shakespeare. 

Devon Glover, an artist from Brooklyn, New York, brings Shakespeare's sonnets to life through Hip-Hop as The Sonnet Man. He's a teacher, rapper, poet, playwright, and actor who performs in schools and theaters across the globe.

His work has been featured on NBC, MSNBC, and BBC. He's also presented at major conferences and festivals worldwide, including in Stratford, Ontario and Stratford-upon-Avon. Devon has taught with esteemed organizations such as the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and Shakespeare Behind Bars.

A notable achievement includes his 2016 Sonnet Marathon tour, where he rapped all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets in succession to honour the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death.

 

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Rachel Mahon is Director of Music at Coventry Cathedral.  Previously she was Organ Scholar at St. Paul’s Cathedral - the first female organist in the Cathedral’s 1400 year history.

She combines a career as a busy Cathedral musician with an international recital schedule which included a triumphant performance of the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony in the BBC 2025 Proms.

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This concert is organised by The friends of the Music of Holy Trinity Church and tickets are being sold from their website:

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https://www.htcfom.co.uk/copy-of-soundbites​​​​

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