Media Release:Van Diemen's Band Presents: Cloak And Dagger | lutruwita/Tasmania tour 2024

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Van Diemen's Band Presents: Cloak And Dagger 

Van Diemen’s Band Breaks The Law On State-Wide Tour (At Least, By Mid-17th Century English Standards)

lutruwita/Tasmania,  September, 2024 - Van Diemen's Band is thrilled to announce its upcoming "Cloak & Dagger" concert tour, to be performed across various venues in lutruwita/Tasmania from Wednesday, 23 October to Monday, 28 October 2024.

“It is ordered…that Players of Interludes are hereby declared to be Rogues, and shall be punisht (sic) and dealt with as an Incorrigible Rogue ought to be…” (London, 11 February 1648)  

This concert wouldn’t have happened in their day!

Things got rather Puritanical in England during the middle of the seventeenth century. Heads rolled (notably, that of King Charles I), witches were burned, and bans placed on football, theatres, and the playing of music in public. The whiff of a cooking goose at Christmastime could land the person responsible in a sea of trouble.

 

But such laws were bound to be flouted, and music always finds a way. In October, Van Diemen’s Band will trace that musical journey over the course of England’s most turbulent century in a program teeming with intrigue, ribaldry, propaganda, and secret code. Brace yourself for a wild ride!

 

Cloak and Dagger starts with the gorgeous melancholy of John Dowland’s songs in the so-called ‘Golden’ Age, with dances describing witchcraft from masques of the 1620s. From there we plunge into the repressive regime of Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth, when music was confined to domestic settings and taverns where popular tunes spread political propaganda. Then it’s out the other side to the Restoration, and the tragically short-lived career of perhaps England’s greatest composer, Henry Purcell.

 

The concert’s cast of instruments includes the first public performances on VDB’s new Baroque harp, an arpa doppia, paid entirely by public donation and built by the world’s finest craftsmen in this area, the German Rainer Thurau.

 

“It will have just arrived in Australia,” says Artistic Director Julia Fredersdorff. “So far we’ve only seen photos of what looks like a masterpiece, fashioned from the wood of rare flamed maple. We’ve provisionally dubbed it the ‘Thylacine harp’ for reasons that may become apparent when audiences see it. Very Tasmanian!” The string band will be augmented by a set of virginals (a rare 17th-century keyboard), the VDB chamber organ, and brilliant recorder pyrotechnics from Simone Slattery.

 

Chief among this Band of ‘Incorrigible Rogues’ will be London-based mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean. Since her most recent appearances with VDB in the stunning 2023 show Heroines, the Australian singer has been awarded the UK’s Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award for 2024, made her house debuts at Geneva’s Grand Théâtre and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and appointed as an Associate of London’s Royal Academy of Music.

 

Lotte’s contributions range from the beautiful ballad Have you seen but a white lillie grow (with words by Shakespeare’s contemporary Ben Jonson), to the propaganda-laden ‘Broadside Ballads’. And after all the concert’s trouble and strife, she ends the program with the century’s finest musical flower: the devastating lament ‘When I am laid in earth’ from Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas – surely one of the summits in the history of music.

 

In Cloak and Dagger, Van Diemen’s Band opens a portal into the hearts and minds of people in a time of political uncertainty, where music and musicians fluctuated between being celebrated and censored, from being flooded with opportunity to suddenly having to practice their art behind closed doors.

 

Think of what’s happened over the past few years. Sounds familiar? At least now you can sing along, without fear of a rogue’s punishment! Feel free to flout 1600’s law – and bring your own tankard.

 

For more information and to book tickets, please visit

https://www.vandiemensband.com.au/whats-on/2024-performances/cloak-dagger/

For interview requests with VDB Artistic Director Julia Fredersdorff or Lunchbox Concert Series artists contact 

Cloak & Dagger - lutruwita/Tasmania tour 2024

Performance Schedule:

• Wed 23 October, 6:00pm: Latrobe Memorial Hall

• Thu 24 October, 6:00pm: Stanley Town Hall

• Sat 26 October, 3:00pm & 7:00pm: Ian Potter Recital Hall (The Hedberg), nipaluna/Hobart

• Sun 27 October, 6:30pm: The Palais, Franklin

• Mon 28 October, 6:00pm: Theatre North at the Princess, Launceston

Ticket Prices:

Launceston, Latrobe, Stanley, Franklin:

• Full: $45.00

• Concession / Friends of Theatre North: $38.00

• Child (12 and under): $25.00

nipaluna/Hobart (Reserved seating - choose your preferred seat):

• Full: $55.00

• Concession: $45.00

• 30 Under 30 / Industry Allies / Student Members: $30.00

Book here: [Insert booking link]

Programme highlights include:

• Works by Henry Purcell and Henry Lawes

• 17th Century popular songs and protest music

• Recontextualised historical pieces with modern relevance

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Media Contact: Samuel Cairnduff 

RESONATE Communications 

samuel.j.cairnduff@gmail.com  | 0401 396 755