Continuo Foundation awards £100,000 in grants and announces new digital platform

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Continuo Foundation has announced a further £100,000 of project grants to support the UK early music sector, bringing the total invested by Continuo since its inception to £560,000.

The Foundation also launches a new digital hub, Continuo Connect. The site is designed to list period instrument performances for audiences across the UK and to provide digital resources for musicians. The impact of Continuo’s grants is expected to be amplified by this new platform.

Continuo Connect currently features more than 90 upcoming events, listed by the 87 ensembles signed up to the site so far. The comprehensive event listing, searchable by location, informs users about concerts in both well-known and smaller community venues often overlooked due to a lack of publicity. Continuo will market Connect on behalf of all the ensembles, aiming to attract larger and more diverse audiences. 

’We are thrilled with the feedback from those using Continuo Connect so far,’ said Ben Vanderspar, Continuo Trustee and Partner, McKinsey & Co. ’Ensembles and audiences have been largely reliant on word of mouth – the Connect site changes that and is by far the most comprehensive place to find out what’s happening in early music. The hub aims to more than double audiences within a year.’

The latest grant awards will support over 80 performances and recordings in more than 50 locations over the next six months. The 27 ensembles whose projects have been awarded a grant includes 12 groups that are new recipients of Continuo grants, and eight recently formed ensembles, double the number anticipated.  

One of the recently formed groups is Divertissements Chinois who will present a programme exploring the fascinating musical links between China and Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Edinburgh-based baroque ensemble Dunedin Consort team up with HERA and Mahogany Opera for the first ever UK performances of Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre’s Cantatas Bibliques. 

’Once again, we have been overwhelmed by the quality and variety of the projects proposed,’ said Tina Vadaneaux, Continuo founder and CEO. ’It is a joy to enable this talent and creativity to be shared with thousands of people in communities all over the country, brought together through the experience of live music.’ 

The 27 recipients of Continuo’s fifth grant round are:

Apollo’s Cabinet, Divertissements Chinois, Dunedin Consort, Ensemble Augelletti, Ensemble Hesperi, Fiori Musicali, Flauguissimo, Florilegium, Hex, HGOAntiqua Orchestra, His Majesty’s Sagbutts & Cornetts, Irlandiani Players, London Early Opera, Manchester Baroque, Musica Antica Rotherhithe, Musica d’Outrora, Palisander, Parnassus, Passamezzo, Queen Victoria’s Consort, Red Priest Strings, Rose Consort of Viols, Spinacino Consort, Spiritato, The City Musick,, The Telling and The Vauxhall Band. 

Full details of the ensembles and projects supported in the fifth round of grants are available via: www.continuofoundation.co.uk/our-grantees

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