Last Saturday, an article by The Guardian voiced criticism of Arts Council England from two leading figures in the Classical music industry, John Tusa (formerly of The Barbican) & John Gilhooly (Director of Wigmore Hall).

You can read the full article here.

Adrian feels this public criticism is long overdue and has only been possible since Wigmore Hall strategically positioned itself to run without ACE investment.

Sometimes we are asked by supporters, how much investment we receive from Arts Council England and the answer is, nothing since February 2022 (a grant from Culture Recovery Funding). Prior to this, we have competed for grants to support Touring but have never secured more than £15,000 per project.

We hope that this article, which really gets to the heart of the matter for performing artists, helps to illuminate why a group like La Serenissima has been unable to secure greater investment from ACE.

New beginnings!

The new financial year is upon us, spring is sprouting and we’re grateful to everyone who has donated recently. Here’s some of what we have in the pipeline:

• Crossing Borders is due for release on Signum in June.
• Crossing Borders II, a new programme for touring and recording, is being edited by Adrian now to include music by Brescianello, Telemann, Vivaldi.
• Lost & Found: Adrian will be making new podcasts about his research and the music we play. Listen to the first podcast, all about Vivaldi, that we made in 2022 here.
• Mandolin with Raffaele La Ragione: we will be recording works for lute and mandolin in October. Track sponsors needed!
• Vivaldi 8+ is due for release in November – it’s not too late to sponsor a track for this 30th Anniversary project. 
• Gloucester plans: we hope to be able to build projects which benefit audiences (young and old) in Gloucester over the coming years. We (Adrian and I) have already donated our services to accompany a Cathedral eucharist with the girl choristers last month & Adrian has been editing rare Italian choral works for the choir to sing at the Cathedral, including by composers Bernabei (from Vivaldi’s personal collection), Perti (friend of the Vivaldis) & Tartini (a rarity in having nothing to do with the violin). If you’d like to sponsor music-making in the city, please let us know.

We need your support to make it happen!

Write to camilla@laserenissima.co.uk to find out more, make a bank transfer or you can donate online here.

Looking forwards:

As many of you hopefully know already, we have the final two instalments of our Wigmore Hall Residency, The A-Z of Italian Baroque, coming up:

29 April La Rossa: Music from Bologna with trumpet players Simon Munday & Matthew Wells
25 June La profezia d’Eliseo nell’assedio di Samaria: Ariosti oratorio with singers Hilary Cronin, Julia Doyle, Hilary Summers, Alessandro Fisher and Neal Davies

Book your tickets now if you haven’t already!

La Serenissima also has live concerts to look forward to beyond June, but, some of these are not confirmed yet. We’d like to give you a heads up about dates, but please bear in mind, the promoters have yet to publish their series. We will update our website as soon as booking goes live.

Dates to save:

22 July North Norfolk
5 October East Sussex
23 October London
6 November East Anglia

Also, we’re returning to The Tung Auditorium, Liverpool in the Autumn, date TBC.

Watch this space. Thank you for your support!
Camilla & Adrian

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