Antony Pitts director Joanna Forbes soprano Rebecca Hickey soprano Kathryn Knight alto Alexander L’Estrange countertenor Richard Eteson tenor Alexander Hickey tenor Francis Brett bass Nick Flower bass

Tonus Peregrinus was founded in 1990 in Oxford. Tonus peregrinus (‘wandering tone’) is the name of the Church’s most ancient psalm tone, yet was also known as the tonus novissimus (‘newest tone’). Combining these two characteristics in a repertoire ranging from the end of the Dark Ages to scores fresh from the printer, Tonus Peregrinus offers an interpretative approach that is both authentic and original, and specializes in music that is the first of its kind, including the earliest complete polyphonic Mass and Passion settings, and the first opera. With Arvo Pärt’s Passio Tonus Peregrinus hit the top of the BBC Music Magazine chart and won a Cannes Classical Award; more recently, Sacred Music from Notre-Dame Cathedral was the only mediaeval music CD shortlisted in the first-ever BBC Music Magazine Awards, and in December 2006 the ensemble was privileged to be asked to sing at the commemoration of Alexander Litvinenko.

Sample Programme:

The True Story... Guillaume de Machaut’s words and music are spectacularly combined in a 14th-century multimedia presentation: Le Voir Dit. 60-something Machaut gets a message from a young fan (Péronne), sparking a three-year romance recorded in courtly poetry and lovesongs.

Miserere: Music touching on our deepest hopes and fears... Tonus Peregrinus offers a programme resounding with seasonal penitence and laments, framed by two pillars of the choral classics - Barber’s own transcription of his famously spellbinding Adagio, and Allegri’s stunning masterpiece Miserere (probably higher than you’ve ever heard it before).

Education:

...the beat goes on... Fast or slow, music has a pulse: in the Renaissance the beat was usually a semibreve, nowadays a crotchet. This workshop traces the journey of the beat from Perotin through a thousand years of Western music.

Recordings:

Sweet Harmony masses and motets by John Dunstable (Naxos 8.557341) (Oct 2005); Adam de la Halle: Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion (Naxos 8.557337) (Apr 06); Gibbons/Pitts/L’Estrange: Hymns and Songs of the Church (Naxos 8.557681) (Oct 06); Mad World (CD.TP exclusive on iTunes) (May 07); Alpha and Omega sacred choral music by Antony Pitts (wt) (Hyperion CDA 67668) (exp Feb/Mar 08)

Performances:

21 Oct 06 English Music Festival, Sutton Courtenay
Church, Oxfordshire
19 Apr 07 Eaton Square Concerts,St Peter’s, Eaton
Square, London
19 May 07 London Festival of Contemporary Church
Music, St Pancras, Euston Road, London

Contact:

David Hocket/Karen Jonckheere, The Welcome Stranger, High Street, Flimwell,
East Sussex TN5 7PB
Tel: 07771 692024

Email: dh@cd.tp or info@tonusperegrinus.co.uk
Website: www.tonusperegrinus.co.uk